Therapists for college students near New York University

"Samantha Dorazio is a passionate LMHC who received her Master's in Mental Health Counseling at Fordham University. She has a wide array of experience in child welfare, college counseling, and private practice settings. Samantha empowers individuals with empathy, cultivates a safe therapeutic space, and guides clients toward meaningful growth."

Modern Psychotherapy with a Creative Edge

City Lights Psychology is a group psychotherapy practice based in Flatiron, Manhattan, providing individual, couples, and family therapy both in-person and virtually across NY, NJ, CT, FL, and PSYPACT states. specializes in couples therapy, perinatal mental health, trauma, anxiety, depression, grief, relationship challenges, identity concerns, and life transitions. Led by Dr. Stephanie Simon, the team of doctoral-level psychologists uses evidence-based and relational approaches including Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT), Gottman Method, Psychodynamic Therapy, CBT, DBT, and Family Systems Therapy to help clients gain insight, improve emotional wellbeing, and build healthier relationships. City Lights Psychology is known for providing personalized, culturally responsive, and trauma-informed care in a supportive environment. The practice works with adults, couples, families, international students, and Asian communities facing stress, burnout, perfectionism, trauma, relationship conflict, postpartum challenges, and emotional overwhelm.

Reaching out for help can be hard. We will do our best to provide a safe, supportive environment, when you can feel free to share as much as you need to. We consider therapy to be a collaboration between clinician and patient. Our job is to work with you to help you better understand your inner thoughts and feelings so that you can become the best version of you. We tend to follow patterns of behavior based on our earliest identities. Some of us go through life thinking we are not smart enough, not good looking enough, not capable enough, or not as good as others. It's important to understand that these beliefs are not in fact reality, but an internalized sense of self that we have learned from our earliest experiences. Because of these beliefs, we can often find ourselves repeating unhealthy patterns in relationships, how we deal with stress, social isolation, engaging in unhealthy or risky behaviors, and all manner of acting out in self-destructive ways. Therapy can help re-define who you are, so that instead following these unhealthy patterns, you can make choices that are informed by what you really want, as opposed to what you think you deserve. Therapy is not a quick fix. It takes time and commitment, and it is hard. We are ready to make that commitment with you, and be with you on your journey of self-discovery, so that you can become the author of your own life, rather than letting it be written for you. Please contact us for a free consultation.

Our NYC-based practice specializes in anxiety and OCD treatment for college students and young adults. Many of the students we work with are high achievers who are used to pushing through, but are finding that anxiety, overthinking, or burnout are becoming harder to manage. This often shows up as getting stuck in your head, feeling overwhelmed by academic or social pressure, or getting caught in patterns of procrastination, perfectionism, or avoidance. For some, OCD or panic are a big part of the picture. College also brings a new level of independence, and managing academics, friendships, and daily life on your own can make these patterns feel more intense. Our approach is warm, structured, and grounded, focused on helping you understand what’s keeping you stuck, build practical skills, and feel more confident navigating this stage of life.

At New York Therapy Practice we believe that the therapy relationship has the ability to provide healing, growth and change. Finding a therapist who helps you feel safe, supported and challenged is central to this process. Our diverse team of skilled therapists provide services to individuals, couples, families and groups. We work closely with you to find the therapist that best fits your needs and our team continually collaborates and supports each other to ensure you are getting the best possible care.

Please visit my profile to learn more about my services.

As a licensed therapist, I am dedicated to empowering adults and families of all backgrounds and cultures in navigating life challenges. These include anxiety, depression, relationship conflicts, grief and loss, emotional struggles, trauma and PTSD, panic disorders, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), and I believe healing happens when we feel seen, supported, and safe to explore growth and emotions in our own time. To achieve this, I take a strength-based, compassionate, and practical approach, allowing me to equip you with effective tools and skills to realize lasting mental wellness. Working together, you can expect an encouraging and nonjudgemental environment that uses evidence-based methods like Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Dialectal Behavior Therapy (DBT), Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), and Exposure and Response Prevention Therapy (ERP). My goal is to help you develop healthy coping skills, deepen self-awareness, and create meaningful change through compassionate and collaborative care that is tailored to your unique goals and pace. I believe in the power of connection, collaboration, and evidence-based therapy, equipping me to be an effective and inspiring therapist. I look forward to walking alongside you as you build insight, resilience, and confidence in your journey to healing and achieving your goals. Having spent four years in the social work field, I saw first-hand how trauma impacts individuals and families, as well as how healing transforms lives. This diverse experience fueled my desire to become a therapist by deepening my passion to provide effective, empowering therapy that addresses the root causes of mental health struggles. I believe every person is capable of healing, which is why I bring empathy, curiosity, and genuine belief in each person’s potential to every session. When I'm not in the office, I’m most often spending time with friends or family. And when I’m not with loved ones, I enjoy being active – playing the piano, cooking, or discovering hidden gems in NYC!

Welcome to our high-quality integrative psychotherapy practice, where we provide personalized and effective treatment to help you achieve your mental health goals. Our practice is led by a team of experienced and compassionate therapists who are committed to helping you live your best life. Integrative psychotherapy is a holistic approach that combines different therapeutic techniques to address your unique needs and concerns. At our practice, we believe that every person is unique and requires a tailored treatment plan to achieve their desired outcome. We use evidence-based techniques from various modalities, including Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Psychodynamic Therapy, Cognitive Processing Therapy, Gottman Couples Therapy, Emotionally Focused Therapy, Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, and Mindfulness-based Therapy.

-Are you struggling with the transition to a more independent phase of life? -Are you overwhelmed by the transition to college and balancing everything on your own for the first time? -Do you feel like everyone else but you has somehow figured out “adulting”? -Are you getting into conflicts with your parents, feeling like they still view you as a child? Many young adults feel alone in these experiences, with the idea that everyone else seems to “have it all together.” Transitions such as graduating high school, starting college, starting your first job, experiencing your first relationship, and working towards being financially independent are all exciting moments in time, but they can also bring stress and uncertainty. College students might be thrown by how much harder academic life is than in high school, no longer having the structure and accountability provided by teachers or parents. Making friends in a new setting may also be harder than you expected, leading to feelings of failure. Especially since having a social life with peers can feel even more important when you’re far from home. Coming home from college for the summer or winter break, many people are thrown by the fact that their friends have grown and evolved in ways that may be different than them, making friendships feel different. If things aren’t working out as you expected, you may start to feel down or depressed, or a sense of isolation and loneliness. That’s where we enter in. We’d love to help you feel a little less alone in this phase of life and to start working through the challenges you’ve been dealing with. At Elevate CBT, we specialize in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), which focuses on addressing thinking and behavioral patterns that may be keeping you stuck and preventing you from having the life you want. It’s a very goal-driven kind of therapy, so your therapist will work with you to identify what is currently a struggle in your life, and what you want to work towards to have a more satisfying life. We have helped many young adults in therapy work towards finding their “people” and figuring out aspects of their identities, improving academic organization and decreasing procrastination, creating a more balanced relationship with alcohol or weed, and asserting independence from parents while still being respectful of the ways in which parental support may still be needed. We also specialize in working with young adults with anxiety, panic attacks, insomnia, OCD, BFRBs (hair pulling and skin picking), trauma, and eating/body image concerns. Our goal is to create a comfortable environment for you to learn more about yourself, your emotions, and how to change behavior in the direction of your desired goals. Balancing self-compassion with pushing yourself outside of your comfort zone, we will work together to help you achieve the life you want.

My client may be a person who currently feels stuck in their life, or dealing with chronic health issues, issues related to school, coming out, or dealing with depression and anxiety. They are seeking to feel better emotionally, function better in their lives, and connect to others in a more meaningful way. I honor the uniqueness of my patients and celebrate the qualities which make them particularly remarkable. I work with patients to achieve more satisfaction from their lives and choices, and provide them with support and practical feedback to assist in helping them resolve current problems and long-standing maladaptive patterns. My focus is to work collaboratively with my patients to help get them to their ideal level of functioning, and foster growth and personal development in a supportive and judgement-free environment. We can develop skills to deal more effectively with overwhelming feelings, identify your strengths, and work together to overcome challenges in your life. I look forward to speaking with you, and discussing how we can work interactively so that you can better navigate your way forward, and get to a more fulfilling level of functioning.

Growing up with learning disabilities, I had an experience that is all too familiar for the neurodivergent community. Often feeling misunderstood and out of place, I was faced with indifference, ignorance, neglect, gaslighting, shame, and the assumption that I could navigate a world that was not built for me without the support I so badly needed. Lonely, adrift, and struggling to find a sense of belonging, I was cast aside and left to fend for myself. After a series of negative experiences with mental health resources and support, my personal journey led me to a couples therapist in 2014. There, I embarked on a journey of transformation, and I was able to see the profound impact that the right therapy relationship could have on a person. It was then that I was introduced to Gestalt psychotherapy, which I immediately connected with. From there, I set forth on a new journey to study Gestalt psychotherapy at the Gestalt Associates for Psychotherapy, a post-graduate training program. Pursuing this path, I have continued to experience connectedness, belonging, compassion, the wonder of curiosity, and love itself. Arriving at this place of acceptance and understanding changed everything for me. Understanding that this positive experience is not the norm for members of the neurodivergent community, I decided to dedicate myself to providing that same transformation for others. With this mission, I founded Welcome Home Healing in 2023. Since then, I have had the pleasure of helping many clients embrace their own innate worth, gifts, individuality, and the freedom to shed their masks of shame and self doubt.

graymatters is a mission-driven practice that provides compassionate and personalized mental health services to people from all communities. We combine the power of human connection with an expertise in neuroscience to help everyday people achieve and maintain lasting mental wellness. We believe mental health is a human right and that taking care of your mental health should be respected, expected, and attainable, regardless of your race, gender identity, age, sexual orientation, or class. Mental health exists on a fluid continuum, and our goal is to support you at your pace and offer the tools to help you redefine the life you want to lead. **Please inquire to see which of our providers are available to use insurance with - however, all of our providers are available for out-of-network (pending scheduling/availability).

I have worked with people experiencing a wide range of difficulties, including trauma, eating disorders, OCD, relationship struggles, and academic stress. I am attuned to the role oppression plays in my patients' lives and am LGBTQIA+ affirming. I enjoy working with students, artists and people with creative practices, those undergoing life transitions, and people seeking to understand intergenerational sources of suffering. My style is warm and nonjudgmental. I am guided by the belief that each person contains inherent strengths and knowledge, and that a primary goal of treatment is to allow for the expression of this unique experience. In our work together, we will move between past and present to understand what it’s like to be you. We will look carefully at your struggles, as well as how you love and dream. This diligent attention to your experience can result in satisfying and often surprising changes in personal, creative, and professional endeavors. In time, this knowledge of the self may also reduce symptoms such as depression, anxiety, and physical pain. I am a New York State licensed master social worker and graduated with honors from Silberman School of Social Work. I am a candidate in adult psychoanalysis at the Contemporary Freudian Society. I have also been trained in the treatment of eating disorders. I have worked with people of diverse racial, ethnic, religious, gender, sexuality, and class backgrounds. I invite you to reach out to me.

You may be entering a new stage in your life, whether it is heading to college and moving out of your childhood home, starting your career, choosing to seek graduate or advanced training, or becoming serious in a committed relationship and starting your own family. You know what you want to achieve, but need additional support in navigating the stresses of setting off on this new path. Or maybe you want help in redefining the roles your family members and loved ones have in your life as you walk towards adulthood in a chaotic world. Maybe you have started your own family and made the decision to become a parent. You may want to parent differently than your parents, but are unsure how. You might be experiencing anxiety around being responsible for a vulnerable new human being. Children can be mirrors, reflecting our own experiences of childhood back onto us. Perhaps past painful experiences of not having your own needs met in childhood are bubbling up and you want to have a safe space to process and explore those experiences. Making lasting change can be difficult for most, and choosing therapy is the first step on the path towards positive growth and change.

Being a student can bring a lot of pressure, uncertainty, and emotional weight. If you are feeling stuck, anxious, or carrying pain that is hard to explain, you are not alone. I am here to support you and help you make sense of what you are experiencing in a way that feels honest and respectful. My approach is trauma informed, queer affirming, and non-more pathologizing. I believe your symptoms make sense in the context of your experiences. Together we will explore those patterns with care and curiosity, not judgment. I draw from EMDR, Internal Family Systems, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, and Eastern philosophy to support healing, growth, and connection to your values. This work is always shaped by you, your story, your pace, and your goals. If you are ready to begin or just curious about starting, I would be happy to connect.

Please visit my profile to learn more about my services.

I specialize in helping people who have OCD, phobias and insomnia. It's very common for these problems to emerge in college, which can add immense pressure to an already intense time of life. Many people who struggle with these issues are very functional in other ways, and work hard to hide their pain. You may be used to solving problems on your own, and you might ask yourself "What's wrong with me? Why can't I fix this" when your usual strategies haven't helped. In our work together, I can help you understand why you keep getting stuck, and find a way to break free. My clients with OCD are smart, conscientious people who want to do the right thing. The things that they fear feel like very real possibilities to them, and they feel like it would be irresponsible to just ignore them. They want someone to tell them that everything is going to be okay, but when someone says that, they have a hard time believing it. They might go back and forth between feeling like other people are in denial about the terrible things that can happen in life, and feeling angry with themselves for not being able to stop spiraling. My treatment approach to OCD is very sensitive to these aspects of OCD. We don’t put energy into determining probabilities or disputing whether or not something is possible. Instead, we help you learn to trust in your own ability to distinguish between real world problems that deserve your time and attention, and OCD created problems that don’t need to be (and can’t be) solved because they are based on a believable, but false story. Once you feel confident that you can tell the difference between these two kinds of problems, you won’t feel the need to seek reassurance or do compulsions. People with specific phobias spend a lot of time and energy trying to avoid the thing that they fear. They are often very creative at finding work-arounds! At the same time, they might also feel limited by their phobias, and wish to seek help. Unfortunately, they might also have an impression that therapy will be like a sadistic game show, where they are forced to come into contact with something terribly frightening. This is not the case! Therapy for phobias is all about education and increasing your sense of self-efficacy and self-acceptance. We go at your pace, with the goal of helping you live your life freely. When you have insomnia, most advice about sleep is not helpful. You probably feel like you know more about sleep than anyone, and yet you still find yourself awake all night and exhausted all day. In therapy, I will listen to you and help you understand why you have been unable to sleep well. Then we will create a plan that actually helps you sleep!

I provide evidence-based, effective, and collaborative psychotherapy for adolescents and emerging/young adults. My therapeutic style focuses on 1) exploration and understanding of your values, goals, and priorities, 2) elucidating adaptive and maladaptive patterns in your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, and 3) helping you make behavioral changes to build a life for yourself which is more in line with your values and priorities. I specialize in cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), and incorporate aspects of other cognitive and behavioral therapies into my practice as appropriate. I am intensively trained in Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) and offer DBT-informed treatment. Your unique treatment needs are the focus. As such, I encourage ongoing discussion about your progress and satisfaction with treatment. Therapy can be hard, and lasting change takes time. Give yourself some credit for seeking out services. Conditions treated include: depression, suicidal thoughts, non-suicidal self-injurious behaviors, emotional and behavioral dysregulation, trauma and PTSD, social anxiety, phobias, panic attacks, obsessive-compulsive disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, perfectionism, attention and concentration difficulties, sleep difficulties, bereavement, relationship issues, family conflict, and excessive work/academic stress. Services are provided via telehealth.

I help people overcome their personal psychological barriers so they can live a more meaningful, authentic life. I provide compassionate, holistic care to all of my clients, supporting them through challenges in relationships, major life transitions, grief and loss, acculturation difficulties, and uncertainty about their path forward in life. I have particular expertise in helping young adults, including college students and those who recently graduated. I worked for several years in college counseling centers and have built on this specialization in private practice, developing a deep understanding of the challenges and uncertainties inherent in this phase of life and how to guide patients through them. I also have considerable experience with those struggling with traumatic or abusive relationships—whether during childhood or as an adult—as well as other forms of trauma. I’m also extremely effective with clients who—short of trauma per se— had or are currently experiencing difficult relationships with parents or other family members. In addition, I have substantial background in helping people who identify as LGBTQ+. That includes people who are just beginning to think about themselves outside of a hetero-normative framework as well as people who started that process earlier in life. Though I have specific expertise in these areas, I welcome all patients. I earned my Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology from Fordham University, and have a breadth of experience in many settings ranging from college counseling centers to inpatient hospital units. This equips me to help patients from diverse backgrounds, life experiences and identities who may struggle with a wide range of emotional concerns. I currently work at The Flatiron Center for Psychotherapy, where I tailor my person-centered, humanistic, trauma-informed approach to craft the most effective treatment for each client.