Modalities

Besides the usual talk therapy for older kids and adults, we do play therapy with younger kids. Play is how kids share their feelings and heal themselves. It is every child’s first language. Whether we’re talking puppets, artwork, doll play, or practicing doing the splits, these are all techniques that

can help kids to express themselves and to heal. We often work with parents and very young children (babies or toddlers) together, and can see kids in individual play therapy from ages 3 and up. We are also happy to offer parent coaching either with just a parent or couple, or as dyadic work with a particular child or teen.

We also offer neuropsychological testing for children and adults, to identify learning disabilities, giftedness, dysgraphia, and neurodivergence including ADHD, autism, and PDA, among other things. We can help you with finding an appropriate school for your child, and with getting them appropriate accommodations.

For interested older kids, teens, and adults, we offer geek therapy as an alternative to traditional talk therapy. If you are a gamer and feel like this is your prefered way of relating, we’ve got you. Does your kid love Minecraft or Roblox? We can use that to work with them. Groups like Dungeons and Dragons as well as individual work with a geeky therapist (anime, games, Superhero therapy, whatever), or working with virtual reality are all options.

We love group therapy at TREAT NYC. DnD groups, DBT skills and process groups, groups for kids and adults with chronic illness or pain, social skills groups, LEGO groups, and parenting groups are all options that we’ve offered at one time or another. If you are interested in any of these groups, please fill out an Interest Form, and we’ll get right back to you.

An exciting modality that many of our staff are trained to use is sand tray therapy. This evidence-based approach has been around for a hundred years, and is an excellent empirically validated way to treat trauma in both children and adults. It involves letting people use their imagination to build “worlds” filled with structures, characters, statues, whatever you might find in a real or imagined world to express deep feelings. Done well, it allows people to really tune in to their body sensations (somatic awareness) and to respond to their body’s desire to place particular figures in their world. The pull to make a certain kind of world during a particular session can offer valuable clues to sources of pain and injury, and can help you to heal.

Finally, we are pioneering “talk and walk” therapy. This gives interested clients an opportunity to meet up outdoors with their therapist and to use movement and nature to help with self-regulation, co-regulation, and breath practices while discussing whatever’s on your mind. Plus, it’s always nice to fit in a bit of exercise! Talk and walk therapy is suitable for both children and adults, and may be used weekly or only occassionally.

The TREAT NYC staff consists of myself with my “well-seasoned” expertise, several staff clinicians who are engaged in their required post-doctoral training as psychologists, and several pre-doctoral student externs. This range of staff, of various ages, backgrounds, and levels of experience, allows you to find a therapist who feels like a really good fit for you. Click on “About Us” to read the bios of our core staff. We will add the bios of our externs in the fall when they join our staff. Including some pre-doctoral trainees as staff clinicians lets us pass on what we know to the next generation, and also allows us to offer a limited number of reduced-fee and “pay what you can” slots. Our staff is all deeply commited to making high quality therapeutic help available to everyone, whether they can afford full private practice fees or not. We do not accept insurance, although you can get a superbill to file for partial insurance reimbursement if your coverage permits it. You will be responsible for paying us monthly, however.

Finally, with the exception of Walk and Talk therapy and elements of the neuropsych testing, all of our work is done remotely. We use Zoom as our preferred platform. The version we use is fully HIPAA compliant, password protected, and encrypted. No one can hack into your sessions, and you can use either your cellphone or a laptop/tablet to hold your sessions at a convenient location. We have spent more than three years figuring out how to offer really engaging therapy digitally, including play therapy with kids. Many peope have bad feelings about working remotely from the peak of the COVID era, but we do it really well. We’ve made this decision to protect our staff (several of whom have chronic illnesses, other vulnerabilities, or Long Covid) and to protect you. We find that remote work is more comfortable than asking people to wear masks during their sessions or having people worry about what those sniffles might mean. Plus, it’s really convenient and allows us to offer services to people throughout New York State.