Human Centered Psychotherapy for Individuals
“I would like to say something...about this experiencing of feeling. It is really the discovery of unknown elements of self...In our daily lives there are a thousand and one reasons for not letting ourselves experience our attitudes fully, reasons from our past and from the present, reasons that reside within the social situation. It seems too dangerous, too potentially damaging, to experience them freely and fully. But in the safety and freedom of the therapeutic relationship, they can be experienced fully, clear to the limit of what they are. They can be and are experienced in a fashion that I like to think of as a “pure culture,” so that for the moment the person is his fear, or he is his anger, or he is his tenderness, or whatever.”
I ABSOLUTELY LOVE…
…this excerpt, from On Becoming A Person, Carl Rogers describes an element of psychotherapy that has been deeply rewarding and transformative for my clients and for me in my work with them. In the private and intimate atmosphere of your sessions you will have an opportunity to expand into a more honest, balanced, and flexible sense of self. In time this exploration is integrated and experienced as a greater freedom in the world.
Each generation gets to decide on their definition of success, relationship, love, sex, and freedom, but at the end of the day no matter the social constructs, it is never too late to release yourself from whatever holds you back and spins you round and round in the accumulated pain and barriers to living a healthy, meaningful life.
Whether you are…
wanting to embark on a journey of a well examined life
struggling with the binds of depression and crippling anxiety
healing from a trauma that’s still haunting your most intimate relationships
discovering your sexuality
traversing a life transition like a separation or a new job
attempting to fix your relationship or marriage
riding the waves of grief
starting a new life in the city as a university student
caring for a newborn with postpartum depression
or coping with OCD, to just name a few,
…you and I will gently move to understand the unique voice of your troubles and create a therapeutic environment especially crafted for you in an effort to strengthen your ability to experience all of your feelings, beliefs, and values while allowing for new perspectives and capabilities to naturally arise leading to resilience and adaptability that will be with you for the rest of your life.
“Before going to Lilian, I had never been to therapy before. While I had considered it, it always felt intimidating or scary or like something I couldn’t afford.
After my husband was in a serious accident, I used what I was going through specifically from that incident as an excuse to find a therapist, but the truth is, I could have started years earlier. Luckily though, my wait brought me to Lilian, who from just our initial phone conversation managed to make me feel safe, at ease, and like therapy was something I deserved.
Gradually my need to talk about the accident all of the time faded, but my need to talk to Lilian did not. I found therapy with Lilian to be so welcoming and open and also challenging in a way that felt like I was always challenging myself for the better.
We quickly began to talk about my goals, and fears as a writer together, and she helped me through some tough creative blocks with a combination of guided meditation and talk therapy.
I went from being someone who used to feel like their problems weren’t big enough for therapy, and was scared of the unknown nature of it, to talking about it openly and recommending it to friends. Lilian’s honest, direct and sincere approach to therapy always felt like the perfect combination of professionalism and friendly warmth. She always made me feel like my weekly time with her was important, and it was. I highly recommend taking the time for yourself to experience therapy with Lilian.”
GOOD FIT & specialities
Much like any relationship, it is vital that you find a psychotherapist that clicks with you. Some say, and I agree, that this intuitive level of connection or rapport is much more important to your ability to heal and to grow than any training or theoretical perspective that a clinician may posses. I felt it was important for me to encourage your ability to choose well for yourself before reading about my specialties because while my clinical roots run deep in many years of successful and meaningful work, it’s not the most important aspect of our work together. Your intuition about what’s right or wrong for you is the most important thing in the room before you and I ever have the pleasure of meeting.
Now on to what I do well and feel passionate about. In other words my specialties: emotional diversity, relationships, therapeutic mediation, neuropsychology, and modern psychotherapeutic groups.
Read on to find out more and/or schedule your free 15 minute consultation. I would be delighted to answer your questions and meet your curiosities.
“I first went to see Lillian because my wife made me. The mandate was the result of an accident where I had totaled my car and was arrested for Driving Under the Influence. The incident was isolated, but followed years of drinking to excess with no control. The problem had gotten to the point where my wife, and other family members, had become seriously concerned that I may have been an alcoholic.
Lillian was able to dismiss my family’s concern with alcoholism in the first session or two, but my issues with drinking and the circumstances around them would certainly need to be dealt with. I remember wanting to stop coming to therapy right there, but it also would have been a huge mistake.
I hated therapy during the first few months. The questions were uncomfortable and finding a way to answer them was more difficult than I ever imagined. Deciding to continue therapy was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made in my life. After a few months, the questions became more comfortable and the desire find answers to them became intriguing instead of intolerable.
I was constantly learning new things about myself and different ways to approach life. What started as a discussion about a drinking problem lead to conversations and skills that taught me how to be a husband that was more attentive, a father who was more present, and a person who was just…generally…better.
During our sessions, my job and career became a major focus of discussion. One of things we uncovered (not surprisingly now that I look back on it) was that communication, one of the areas that lacked in my home life, was also an issue for me at work.
Lillian taught me how to be a better listener and how to communicate more effectively, in order to get a desired result. Recently, I was promoted to Managing Director of a major investment bank, a goal I had striven to achieve for a long time and something we discussed at length in our sessions. Even though I had not seen Lillian in more than 2 years, she is one of the first people I reached out to share the news.
My wife could always tell when I had a therapy session earlier in the day as I was typically in the best mood of the week. She called it “The Lillian Effect”. If they say chicken soup is penicillin for the soul, Lillian is the medicine for your mind. Don’t hesitate to see her. She will help change your life. She changed mine.”
EMOTIONAL DIVERSITY
I am often struck by the infinite diversity of individuals who seek me out for psychotherapy and groups. Perhaps this is the result of working in a city as diverse as New York City, it could be my personal multicultural background, and/or my history of social work and advocacy, but regardless of the reason, I have had the unique pleasure of traveling around the world with humans from every continent and over 80 countries without ever having to step on an airplane. This experience has become even more saturated since I’ve expanded my practice online, now having global reach to practice psychotherapy with clients around the world.
What is most interesting about working with people from so many walks of life, sexual orientations, cultural and ethnic backgrounds, and linguistic proficiencies are the undeniable truths that begin to reveal themselves about the shared human experience.
One of these truths is that your wellbeing is very much determined by how much emotional diversity you are willing and able to experience and process both inside and outside of yourself.
In working with me you will have an opportunity to benefit from a multidimensional therapeutic toolkit that is meant to meet you exactly where you are in your lifespan and help you expand into a more richly felt and lived experience of life.
THERAPEUTIC MEDITATION
One of these tools is therapeutic meditation that allows you to explore and learn about the nature of your anxiety, depression, worries, somatic experiences, tensions, desires, emotions, and mind. Many of my clients who use therapeutic meditation in their sessions tend to notice, almost immediately, that some of the ways they perceived their troubles were based on incorrect assumptions and misunderstandings that are keeping them stuck. Clients who have a tough time accessing their emotions, love this tool for creating an easeful path to their feelings and other internal experiences that are otherwise difficult to access. In the same way, those of us who have feeling and mind states that overwhelm us and seem just out of reach, enjoy the gently guided exploration offered by the therapeutic meditation technique.
The most mind-blowing aspect of this type of guided therapeutic meditation is the neurological rewiring that begins to emerge, rippling into my clients’ lives as healthier attitudes, perceptions, coping skills, and inter and intra-personal capabilities that result in deeply felt meaningfulness and intimacy with themselves and the people in their lives.
“Lilian creates a warm and engaging atmosphere right from the start. I sought help while going through a difficult time in my marriage and always felt that I was being heard but never judged. She is an active listener who has ultimately challenged me to see myself in a new way. I highly recommend Lilian. Her encouragement continues to motivate me to make positive changes in my life.”
COMPLETING PSYCHOTHERAPY
It might be a bit odd to begin telling you more about what to expect when working with me by introducing what happens at the end of our time together, but it feels like a wonderful place to begin our acquaintance.
In my 15 years as a psychotherapist I have worked with roughly 1,800 individuals and have experienced just as many completions of psychotherapy not one of which has been the same.
Some clients move on right away on their journey to find help that best aligns with what they are needing. Sometimes they ask for referrals and I offer them the many resources available in my network. Others move on after a few months when they begin to feel less burdened by whatever brought them in in the first place.
There are also those of you, like the client quoted above, who come to address a part of your life where you need more support but continue psychotherapy after the crisis is averted because you begin to uncover hidden parts of yourself and with it unimaginable possibilities for joy and love in your life and your relationships. These clients typically work with me anywhere from one year to five years and some have stayed on for up to 12 years.
What is interesting about people who end up working with me throughout their lifespan is that they would have done just fine on their own, with their wonderful minds and adaptable characters, however, across the board when these clients are ready to leave therapy all of them have reported that having the therapeutic relationship allowed them to sustain their maturational progress without slipping into old habits, helped them have a balance in their lives between meaningful professional success and a rewarding family life, allowed them to feel grace during the most painful moments, and made it possible for them to integrate the lessons of their lived experience in service of a life well lived with their unique version of truth and wisdom.
All of this is to say, that clients come and go on their own terms and whatever your personal cluster of needs, desires, and struggle, I am committed to meeting you exactly where you are in a way that could advance your life possibly surpassing what you thought was possible for you in your relationship to yourself, to others, and to life.
I ask every client that works with me to allow for several sessions, depending on how long we’ve worked together, to say goodbye and to do a casual exit interview that offers a well deserved send off to whatever comes next in your life. And, of course, the my door remains forever open to you shall you ever feel like resuming our work together.