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Posts from the ‘Expertise’ Category

Jan 7

Tree

Biography

My ambition to become a psychologist traces back to my first experience in psychotherapy as an adolescent. The psychologist I saw then not only helped me during a turbulent time in my life, but her example allowed me to imagine that I could develop the capacity to work in the kinds of ways she did, helping me to make connections among my experiences while offering guidance in an empathetic, caring manner.

It’s been a long road since then. After earning an undergraduate degree in psychology at the University of Maryland, I worked for four years for Westat, a government contractor, in the area of human factors research. This provided an excellent foundation in research methods and statistics, skills that have transferred into being a consumer of psychological research as it informs clinical practice. It also provided a foundation of business and consulting skills that have transferred into the small business owner aspect of private practice, as well as the peer consultation facet of my practice.

Working for some period of time between undergraduate and graduate training also provided the chance to live and to mature in ways that I believe are vital to clinical work. Whenever a college student asks me about pursuing doctoral study, I recommend taking some time first to experience the world. I prepared for doctoral study during these years by sampling a variety of psychology-related experiences, including volunteer work for a geriatric research program at the National Institutes of Health.

My doctoral training began in 1999 when I joined the APA-accredited program in clinical psychology at Antioch University New England, located in Keene, New Hampshire. Antioch is known for both its rigorous academic culture and socially progressive world view. The appeal of Antioch was its encouragement of students to bring their ‘whole selves’ to learning–not simply an accumulation of knowledge, but a full engagement of mind, heart, and social responsibility.

Doctoral training in psychology involves both didactic learning and a series of supervised clinical experiences. My training included a year-long practicum at Tewksbury State Hospital in Massachusetts, where I practiced individual and group psychotherapy on an inpatient psychiatric unit.

My next training experience took place at Northeastern University’s Center for Counseling and Student Development, where I practiced psychotherapy with college students. I later returned to Northeastern to work as a member of the counseling center staff.

Following completion of my academic coursework in 2003, I moved to New York where I matched with the pre-doctoral internship program at Stony Brook University Counseling Center, which is known for its application of psychoanalytic theory to a multicultural student population.

Inspired by this and previous experiences working in university counseling centers, my dissertation research examined how theories of psychological development may inform psychotherapy practice for college students in university counseling centers.

Upon earning my doctorate in 2005, an additional year of supervised experience is required for licensure. I gained these hours at Pesach Tikvah, a mental health agency in Brooklyn that serves the Hassidic population in Williamsburg. I ended up continuing on for several years at this agency where I provided psychotherapy to patients in a continuing day treatment program and provided psychological consultation to a residential home for women with developmental disabilities.

I earned my license in 2006, upon which I opened my private practice. As the practice has grown, I have branched out from clinical work to serve as the executive director of TherapySafetyNet and to provide consultation to other clinicians for private practice business development and modernization.

Oct 26

copyright Angela Taormino licensed to Geoffrey Steinberg, Psy.D.

Expertise in Internet-Based Social Life

Today, an ever-increasing portion of social life takes place through digital media. Text messages, Skype, Twitter, and Facebook are just a few of the innovative environments where crucial social exchanges occur in people’s lives. From online dating to break-ups by text, It is becoming commonplace for personal relationships both to begin and end by way of technology.

In addition to digital communication with people you may otherwise know face-to-face, the internet provides nearly infinite possibilities for social and sexual exchanges with anonymous strangers. Such anonymity also creates the potential to present oneself via alter egos constructed through text-based profiles and even graphics-based avatars.

Mental health professionals and everyday computer users alike tend to wonder, are these forms of interaction an evolution in how people relate to another? Or facsimiles of relationships that substitute for the so-called real thing?

Like much in human psychology, I think it depends. The same act for one person may signify an avoidance of relationships, while for another it may signify growth in capacity to relate to others, with nearly infinite shades of meaning in between. Rather than viewing such experiences through a categorical value statement, I think the point is to acknowledge that for many people, presenting oneself and relating to others by way of digital media is simply a reality of social life in the present day.

As digital exchanges of all varieties have become increasingly important facets of social life, it is likewise important to examine the meanings of these experiences in psychotherapy. Treatment works best when you as a client feel comfortable bringing your whole self into the therapeutic relationship, including those aspects of your life that exist online. Such comfort is increased when you can be confident that your therapist is versed in the nuances of both traditional and digital forms of socializing.

Because the clients I see in my practice tend to be highly fluent in multiple forms of digital technology, I make it a priority to stay current by way of continuing education in this area of psychotherapy. This past weekend, I attended the conference, Hooking Up: Psychoanalytic Perspectives on Sexuality in the 21st Century, co-sponsored by the New York State Psychological Association’s Division of Psychoanalysis and the New York University Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis.

The speakers at this conference–as both practicing psychoanalysts and innovators in understanding how the digital age is shaping emotional life today–helped me to refine my understanding of both theory and practice in this area. The conference also reinforced the value I have perceived in encouraging clients to talk about their on-line experiences in therapy, particularly among clients for whom the importance of digital experiences is equivalent to (or even greater than) the analog facets of their family, career, and sexual lives.

For clients who do not experience conflict or distress regarding their internet use, this may simply take the form of exploration of yet another facet of life. However, for clients who have concerns related to their internet use, it can be invaluable to understand how such concerns are intricately tied to the broader contexts of personality and interpersonal life.

Common internet-related concerns I have encountered and have experience treating in clinical practice include the following:

  • The challenge of establishing boundaries between personal and professional life when feeling compelled to be available by mobile communication at all times.
  • Feelings of anxiety while waiting for replies to digital communications.
  • Concerns about using internet porn, for example when over-use starts to interfere with work, school, or social responsibilities.
  • Discomfort in relation to a partner’s use of the internet.
  • Reactions to discovering an on-line affair.
  • Reactions to reconnecting with people from the distant past by way of Facebook and other social media.

Any of these concerns tends to be highly emotionally charged, and therefore helpful to identify and work through in therapy. I have learned to welcome clients not only to talk about such online experiences in therapy, but also in some cases to bring in samples of digital life, for example, reading a text message or looking at a website together in session. In these ways, I may be able to help you clarify what your online experiences mean to you and how you may successfully integrate your experiences within the broader context of your personal life.

Mar 11

Building Snow Vista

Expertise in Severe Emotional Conditions

Some of the strongest, most resilient people I have met are those who live with conditions such as schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, and severe personality disorders. I have experience practicing psychotherapy with clients who struggle with severe emotional conditions in both inpatient and outpatient continuing day treatment settings, as well as private practice.

Living with a severe condition can make it challenging to keep up with relationships, work, and self-care. Friends and family at times may become frustrated by the unusual beliefs and actions of a person with a serious psychological condition. I find it particularly engaging to join with a client in an attempt to see the world through their eyes. What may otherwise seem bizarre or incomprehensible typically has great meaning for the individual. The collaborative process of elucidating such meanings can go a long way toward making life more manageable. Decoding such meanings through the process of therapy often results in identification of unmet needs, communications to significant others, or other areas that may be targeted for growth and development. By learning more adaptive ways of getting needs met and communicating with others, therapy may result in improved functioning in work and relationships.

For clients who have ever been hospitalized for a psychiatric condition, I may be able to help not only prevent a relapse but also return to functioning effectively in your relationships, home life, and work. When necessary, appointments may be scheduled at a greater frequency than once per week. I maintain professional relationships with several local psychiatrists, and together can collaborate to provide the highest quality outpatient treatment. While medication may ensure a certain level of stability, psychotherapy can help you recover your life. Psychotherapy can help not only with symptom relief but also getting back on a track of personal growth, development, and life satisfaction.

May 28

copyright Angela Taormino licensed to Geoffrey Steinberg, Psy.D.

Expertise in Coming Out

Coming out is usually not a single day marked in red on the calendar. It’s a process that unfolds over time, involving multiple changes in how you relate to yourself, other people, and the world around you.

Each individual’s coming out story is unique, and therapy may help you author that story in ways that feel most authentic and comfortable to you.

Our work together may help you identify barriers to coming out, develop a plan to overcome such barriers, and feel supported and understood as you follow through with carrying out your plan.

Such work is typically multifaceted:

  • Coming out to yourself. Your personal history of exposure to gay cultures and attitudes toward being gay may play a major role in your ability to feel comfortable with a gay identity. Just about everyone has encountered some form of homophobia in one’s family, school, community, and so forth, and such negative attitudes can have a profound effect on your feelings about yourself. Therapy may help you confront negative feelings and replace them with more positive thoughts, feelings, and attitudes about being gay, thus helping you to develop self-esteem in relation to your identity.
  • Coming out to family. While some people come out to everyone in the family at the same time, others prefer to build a network of allies within the family that gradually encompasses the entire family system. Your family’s religious attitudes, politics, and general attitudes toward gay people may inform your feelings of safety with coming out. Therapy may help you gain the courage to come out while at the same time work on redefining relationships to family members. Ideally, this may bring you closer to your family because they may have the chance to really know you as whole person for the first time. Of course this does not always go as smoothly as one may hope. Therapy may help you navigate ‘emotional land mines’ among your family and emerge stronger.
  • Coming out to friends and at work. It’s not uncommon to worry about losing friends or professional standing when coming out of the closet. Therapy may help you articulate such fears and evaluate to what degree they may be founded.

Our work together may help you tailor your coming out process to your specific relationships and environments,Joining gay communities. Coming out is not just about exiting a previous assumption of being straight. It’s also about entering a new chapter of your life. Ideally, you may ‘come in’ to a world of new relationships based on authenticity and self-esteem.

Our work together may help you navigate this new territory in ways that continue to increase your life satisfaction.

I welcome your call with any questions or to schedule an initial consultation.

May 2

Chelsea Market Man

Increasing Relationship Satisfaction for Gay Men

The absence of a culturally-prescribed template for gay relationships provides an opportunity for gay men to define relationships in their own terms. While this opportunity holds potential for transcending narrowly defined, traditional relationships, it can also be fraught with uncertainty. Insecurity, jealousy, and controlling behavior are just some of the barriers to authentic, satisfying relationships.

Therapy may help you to clarify your personal limits, express your needs, and create relationships of your own design. Our work together may help you improve your ability to communicate and to work through conflicts in your partnership. Whether you experience repetitive conflicts with your partner or similar problems across multiple relationships, I may be able to help you break the cycle.

Many people find themselves repeating the same cycles in relationships. For example, I often work with people who find themselves too involved or dependent on others. I may be able to help you establish clearer boundaries between yourself and others. I also work with people who experience loneliness and feel uncertain how to improve their social life. I may be able to help you develop your social skills and learn how to become close to others so that you may achieve the satisfaction in relationships that you long for.

Therapy itself is a unique kind of relationship, and the attention that you and I may pay to the ways that we work together may help you discover new ways of relating to others in your life.

I welcome your call with any questions or to schedule an initial consultation.

Oct 1

Variety Display Window

Qualifications

LICENSE

Licensed Psychologist #016942
New York State Education Department | Office of the Professions

EDUCATION

2005
Doctor of Psychology (Psy.D.),
Department of Clinical Psychology
Antioch University New England
Accredited, American Psychological Association

2002
Master of Science (M.S.),
Department of Clinical Psychology
Antioch University New England

1994
Bachelor of Arts (B.A.), Psychology
University of Maryland, College Park

EXPERIENCE

2007 – Present
Founder & Executive Director
TherapySafetyNet
New York, NY

2006 – Present
Private Practice
New York, NY

2004 – 2007
Staff Psychologist
Pesach Tikvah–Door of Hope
Brooklyn, NY | read more

2003 – 2004
Pre-Doctoral Intern
Stony Brook University Counseling Center
Stony Brook, NY

2001 – 2002
Practicum
Northeastern University Counseling Center
Boston, MA

2000 – 2001
Practicum
Hathorne Psychiatric Units
Tewksbury State Hospital
Tewksbury, MA

1995 – 1999
Research Analyst
Westat
Rockville, MD | publications

MEMBERSHIPS

American Psychological Association
New York Psychological Association

Jun 23

Subway Station Snow

Professional Experience: Continuing Day Treatment Program

This entry begins a series of reflections on the professional experiences I had prior to private practice. My first position after earning my doctorate was to work as a Staff Psychologist in a Continuing Day Treatment Program at Pesach Tikvah, a mental health agency that serves the Orthodox and Hassidic Jewish communities in Brooklyn.

In a Day Treatment Program, clients attend not only their weekly therapy appointments, but also attend the program five days a week for intensive treatment of chronic psychological disorders. It’s a middle ground between psychiatric hospitalization and complete independence. The therapeutic relationship takes on added depth and intensity when clients and therapists see one another all day, every day. The relationships that clients form with one another and the program as a whole can ultimately be transformative and healing.

I accepted this position because I was intrigued by the possibility of practicing long-term psychotherapy with people who struggle with serious conditions such as schizophrenia and personality disorders, particularly given the added complexity of doing such work within a totally unfamiliar cultural environment. Entering this environment felt like going to work in a foreign country, where nothing can be taken for granted regarding language, custom, and meaning.

While I personally hold a cultural identification with Judaism, I had minimal religious education as I grew up, and certainly no exposure to Orthodox beliefs and practices. So joining this agency demanded a great deal of cultural competence and openness to being a minority among both colleagues and clients. I feel proud of the close working relationships I formed with colleagues and the culturally-sensitive therapeutic relationships I developed with clients.

I practiced psychoanalytically-informed individual and group therapy with clients whom I treated for several years. These were some of the strongest, most resilient people I have ever met. For people living with a serious and persistent mental illness such as schizophrenia, it can be challenging to keep up with relationships, work, and self-care, yet seldom have I witnessed such courage as among these individuals. Their religious devotion was inspiring as well, since most had life circumstances that would have made it perfectly understandable to lose all faith.

I experienced the satisfaction of seeing the clients with whom I worked make meaningful progress, some even becoming able to live independently for the first time in their adult lives. Psychotherapy can have a tremendous impact on a person’s life, particularly among those who face the greatest imaginable emotional and mental challenges. It was a privilege to play such a part in clients’ lives, and remarkable to have an opportunity to do so with people whose cultural experience has historically been closed to psychological intervention because it was viewed as an element of the secular, rather than religious world.

My responsibilities in the Day Program also included implementation of programmatic changes as dictated by the state Office of Mental Health. This aspect of my job inspired my interest in critical dialogue regarding public funding of mental health services, particularly with respect to the rhetoric of ‘evidence-based practice,’ as discussed in this blog.

Nov 30

copyright Angela Taormino licensed to Geoffrey Steinberg, Psy.D.

Expertise in LGBT Issues

I specialize in helping gay men develop more satisfying lives. The concept of life satisfaction is determined by each individual. Likewise, barriers to achieving a more satisfying life tend to be unique to each individual’s personality, life history, coming out experience, vulnerabilities and strengths.

Much of my work involves helping gay men who struggle with relationship conflicts, self-esteem, body image, sexual compulsivity, and coming out. In my experience, these kinds of focal problems are often embedded within a deeper context of personality, depression, and anxiety issues. Thus, psychotherapy may involve making connections between past and present experiences with the aim of creating a more satisfying future.

Our work together may help you unravel what’s often a complex mix of influences holding you back: negative relationship patterns you learned growing up, homophobic attitudes you encountered that still exert an invisible influence on your self-esteem, and a lack of role models for committed gay relationships in society.

Psychotherapy may help you get unstuck so you can build the life you dream of. Depending on your preferences and needs, you and I may decide to work together briefly to get through a current challenge or longer-term to resolve long-standing difficulties and achieve lasting results.

Affirmative psychotherapy means that gay experiences are understood as absolute equals to straight experiences. I may be able to help you understand how homophobia in society has shaped your personal development, and from there work on establishing a more positive identity as gay man. I am committed to ensuring you’ll have an accepting and understanding experience so you can feel comfortable bringing your whole self into therapy.

I have gained specialized training and experience with gay concerns in psychotherapy, including coming out, negotiating relationships, navigating the single’s scene, workplace issues, HIV/AIDS, substance use, depression, and social anxiety. Throughout my graduate training I was active in advancing psychology graduate students’ competence in working with GLBT individuals through projects such as the Passariello Colloquium.

Whether you’re thinking about coming out now or have been out for a while; whether you’re single and trying to deal with ‘the scene’ or partnered and wish your relationship could be healthier, I’d like to help.

Nov 30

Orchestra Group V

Expertise in College Mental Health

The college years can be a time of great personal growth and development: becoming independent from family, revising belief systems, forming new relationships, establishing one’s place in the world. Sometimes these changes go smoothly, sometimes not.

I have experience working with students who have a wide range of concerns including relationship problems, identity concerns, academic problems, procrastination, internet addiction, alcohol and drug abuse, and family conflicts. I work with students not only to resolve symptoms but also to understand problems as critical events along a developmental progression, that is, to work through problems in service of growth that occurs normatively during the college years.

I aim to help students complete their education while mastering the challenges they face. I have helped students with serious psychiatric disorders to remain in school and gain mastery over their problems.

My approach to treatment is informed by training experiences at Northeastern University’s counseling center and a pre-doctoral internship experiences at the Stony Brook University Counseling Center.

These experiences also inspired my dissertation research, which focused on how psychotherapy during the college years may foster students’ development in personality, ways of knowing, and cultural-political identity.

I welcome your call with any questions or to schedule an initial consultation.

Nov 30

Mannequin Pair

Expertise in Relationships

Many people find themselves repeating the same cycles in relationships. Whether you experience repetitive conflicts with your partner or similar problems across multiple relationships, I may be able to help you break the cycle.

Therapy may be able to help you improve your ability to communicate and to work through conflicts with significant others. This may include conflicts with a partner or spouse such as insecurity, jealousy, controlling behaviors, or infidelity; conflicts with your family of origin that stem from childhood and have yet to be resolved; or difficulties sustaining cooperative relationships with friends or colleagues.

I often work with people who find themselves too involved or dependent on others. I may be able to help you establish clearer boundaries between yourself and others.

I also work with people who experience loneliness and feel uncertain how to improve their social life. I may be able to help you develop your social skills and learn how to become close to others so that you may achieve the satisfaction in relationships that you long for.

I specialize in therapy that focuses on helping you understand how your concerns developed and increasing your awareness of ways you may unknowingly repeat unhealthy patterns that you learned early in life.

Therapy itself is a unique kind of relationship, and the attention that you and I may pay to the ways that we work together may help you discover new ways of relating to others in your life.

Our work may allow you greater freedom from what your past has taught you about relationships, and thus greater choice in how you live today. Depending on your preferences and needs, you and I may decide to work together briefly to get through a current challenge or longer-term to resolve longstanding difficulties and achieve lasting results.

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