We need freedom in the world: freedom to move, live, love, think, change, do, play, make, be.
And we need freedom within ourselves to imagine living that way, freedom to let ourselves try, want, and do something new. This is where therapy comes in.
Sometimes people are trying their hardest. All their effort doesn’t get them out of endless loops. Everything new is woven right back into the old and it becomes hard to experience joy. I work with people to address this struggle.
Joy comes from freedom—both freedom to change and freedom to be yourself. Joy is playing in that paradox—staying you while moving, growing, changing, learning.
My work is to help you expand your sense of what is possible, cultivate a strong sense of self, all while at the same time nurturing a capacity to see how multiple and infinite you are.
Who I Work With
I work with adults who are living with trauma, trauma that takes many forms. I work with people who have Complex PTSD and were abused as children. I work with people who had alcoholic parents or grew up with a great deal of chaos. I work with LGBTQ+ people who are having a hard time with family and social expectations of their gender and sexuality.
Most people I work with are—or are wondering if they are—neurodivergent.
I work with people who have tried therapy before and know that it helped. But a lot of the ways it helped were to function better on the outside and make your pain more private. I work with people curious if therapy can do more, wondering if therapy can make a difference in how you feel at your core.
That core pain—that feeling you think can’t change—that’s my specialty.
In Session
During sessions, I am present, connected, and in the moment with you. I give you my honesty, even when it is difficult. Through our work you may learn that honesty need not equal brutality. You may for the first time find honesty to be a safety and a comfort.
When you share your struggles, I don’t try to undo the reality of your experience and I don’t tell you that you are thinking the wrong way. Together we try to understand why you are thinking what you're thinking, and what purpose or need it serves.
We might find that your thoughts are there because you know something—you know, for example, what is right and wrong for you. Though we will talk about your relationships with other people in your life, it is your relationship to yourself that will be at the center. We might discover a lot of distress comes from fighting with your own mind, fighting what you know.
In our work, I hold space to imagine how you can have a larger capacity for thinking. This includes an appreciation for the wisdom and embodied insight in your current thinking, as well as options for new ways of thinking that may come with less pain.
I hold open my imagination for what you struggle to think possible until you can do this too.
The Place of the Social World
Our minds are formed by the social world. Initially that social world seems small—it’s just you and your caregivers. But culture is in our every interaction from the start. It’s in all the words we use to think. It makes sense, then, that culture, privilege, and oppression will show up in our work. When it does, we’ll talk about it.
Some people don’t want to know too much about their therapist—and you don’t need to. Others need to hear more about my politics and values before working together—I can understand that. You can ask me those kinds of questions in our consultation.
About Chris
I am a licensed psychoanalyst in New York State (License #001105). You can call me Chris or Christina. I use they and/or she pronouns.
I practice both therapy and psychoanalysis, meaning that with some people we will meet weekly (therapy) and with others we will meet very intensively, multiple times a week (analysis).
Psychoanalytic therapy and psychoanalysis are both about us forming our own unique relationship and using that relationship to do our work; I don’t have a one size fits all method. The best way to find out what it would be like to work with me is to ask me. I’m happy to answer your questions during our consultation.
About My Education
My clinical and psychoanalytic training has been post-graduate—completed after I received my academic degrees. I have a doctorate in sociology from The Graduate Center, CUNY. During my time there I studied social theory and psychoanalysis from an academic (non-clinical) perspective.
My clinical training began with the Contemporary Freudian Society’s (CFS) New York State License Qualifying program, from which I graduated in 2021, the same year was licensed by New York. In January 2023, I graduated from CFS's adult psychoanalytic program, completing the highest international standards set forth for psychoanalytic training.
I was also trained in the three-year Anni Bergman Parent-Infant Program, where I conducted psychoanalytic therapy with infants and their caregivers. I now primarily use this training in my work with adults; it helps me to get grounded in thinking about your earliest experiences.
Professionally, I was the 2023 winner of the Ralph Roughton Award for my work celebrating queer psychoanalysis—and critiquing Oedipus. I was a 2022 Sexualities and Gender Identities Committee Scholar of the Society for Psychoanalysis and Psychoanalytic Psychology (Division 39 of APA). In 2020, I was a founding member of the Psychoanalytic Coalition for Social Justice which grew out of the Inter-Institute Task Force on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. I teach and supervise psychoanalytic candidates at the Manhattan Institute for Psychoanalysis.
Fees and Insurance
If you think we will be a good match but have financial constraints, you can check in to see if I am currently able to offer fee flexibility.
I offer a number of very low fee (under $50) sessions. All low fee slots are currently full. Feel free to check back here in the future to see if availability has changed.
I do not take insurance; however, I do accept FSA/HSA cards.
If your plan has out-of-network benefits, you can likely use those to be reimbursed for a portion of the fee. Feel free to ask me questions about out-of-network options before or during our consultation. I won’t know what your benefits are, but I can help you to ask your insurance company the right questions.
Getting Started
My practice is currently full and I am not accepting new patients at this time.
The fastest way to get in touch with me is by email.
Before officially starting our work together, we would meet for three sessions in a consultation period. We can use that time to make sure we are a good match. If we are, great! We will start working together. If we are not, the process will help you get clear on what a good match for you looks like.
If you have a few questions that you need answered before being ready to have a full length session, let me know and we will find some time to speak on the phone for ten to fifteen minutes.
My practice is all virtual (in-person may be an option in the future). If you have access needs beyond what Zoom or phone calls currently offer, please feel free to be in touch and we can talk about how to make sessions work for you.