Remedy with Meira Cohen-Hansford, LCSW

Meira Cohen-Hansford is a Certified Clinical Social Worker in New York specializing in trauma, stress and anxiety, and postpartum despair. We requested Meira a lot more about her operate with purchasers and her guiding philosophies on therapy.

Meira’s history and particular daily life

How did you choose to come to be a therapist?

I am not guaranteed if I chose to grow to be a therapist or starting to be a therapist selected me! Extended before education and licensure, I was cultivating a exercise of curiosity, compassion and social engagement. I was always a listener, confidant and an individual to procedure inner thoughts with. I was the go-to student in higher university to share minor and main grievances with. I was also always oriented towards striving to fully grasp and mend myself.

My mom was a therapist and numerous of her buddies were being in the field of psychology and psychiatry. Foundational therapeutic expertise, my disposition and fascination have been always there—for as lengthy as I can keep in mind.

What was your earlier do the job before likely into private practice?

After university I worked in Advertising and marketing prior to returning to graduate faculty. I worked in mental health and fitness clinics prior to non-public observe.

What do you enjoy executing in your free of charge time?

I do a good deal of yoga! I wander and hike with good friends. Commit time with my little ones and partner. I go through, compose, get pleasure from the electrical power of the metropolis.

Meira’s specialties and treatment philosophies

What guiding rules advise your operate?

The a few most prevalent foci in my work are creating self compassion, discovering to sluggish down and to have faith in oneself. I use my full staying while engaged in sessions. I am typically connecting with my body, my breathe, my sensations and encouraging shoppers to do the identical. I utilize Mindfulness to assistance people today sluggish down and tolerate what they notice and experience. Just about every human being is special, but if ready, I stimulate the use of somatic knowledge to aid people acquire a lot more consciousness of their feelings.

I take a pretty non judgmental stance and assistance my clientele cultivate that in themselves. It’s genuinely tricky to check out our interior workings if we are staying unkind to ourselves. I frequently perform in components language, helping men and women relate to conflicting motivations. And most imortantly it is the romantic relationship concerning myself and shopper that informs the perform.

What clientele do you do the job with most usually?

I do a whole lot of trauma get the job done. I also perform with folks having difficulties with stress, existence transitions, postparum, parenting, and associations. I function with a assortment of populations, spanning teenagers to older older people. However most often function with folks in their 20’s-40’s. I work with men and women as effectively as couples.

I have a particular curiosity in doing the job with younger men and women navigating their 20’s and 30’s. This is often a really fruitful few decades to find out a lot about oneself and make meaningful selections. I also appreciate to get the job done with newish moms and dads settling into this stage of life.

Can you notify us much more about your specialty in trauma?

I work with a selection of traumas, which includes attachment traumas, sexual assault, psychological abuse, grief and reduction. Normally this do the job involves a great deal of psychoeducation all-around their anxious units as very well as educating and developing grounding techniques and new ways to self soothe and self control. Shame normally accompanies Trauma, so doing work with this complicated psychological practical experience if usually a big piece of the function.

Can you inform us much more about your specialty in stress and anxiety?

Nervousness manifests in so several approaches, for illustration, perfectionism, obsessive compulsive tendencies, well being anxieties, sleep challenges, digestion, gripping, etcetera… I start out by assisting men and women check out their marriage to their nervousness, which in it itself is an entrenched behavior. We explore the a variety of strategies they feel guarded by their panic and how that will make it tough to permit it go and approaches they can start to befriend it in purchase to change the stress and anxiety with new ways of remaining. Additoinally we explore what emotions lie beneath the anxiousness, helping to lean into those inner thoughts that are usually masked by the nervousness.

Can you notify us about your get the job done with new mothers navigating the postpartum period?

Matrescence, the beginning of getting to be a mom is a new phase of life, billed with hormonal modifications, identification shifts, loss, grief, overwhelming inner thoughts, and many others.. Moms and Dads reward enormously from having their activities normalized and reframed or contextualized for them. In the previous I ran groups for mother and father, ‘Beyond the Very first Year’ where by we collected and explored this new terrain and how to most effective manage these universal issues.

What do you uncover most satisfying about your function?

Looking at the people today I perform with on the highway to conference their targets of remedy. Whether it is therapeutic and emotion a lot more alive, producing self regulation tactics, strengthening their feeling of self or associations. It really is unbelievably gratifying to be aspect of peoples procedures.

Remedy classes with Meira

What will our very first session alongside one another be like? What takes place in ongoing sessions?

I really don’t have an intake, so we seriously just get started with wherever you are at. If you prefer, I can usually present some prompts to get us started out. No matter whether they are thoughts close to what is bringing you to treatment, any prior treatment, what worked/failed to get the job done, if you have objectives or intentions of therapy. My philosophy is that we by natural means get to the areas we need in the work and so I do not have an agenda or record of questions about your background. I also get the job done in the current, so we may just just take detect of how it feels as the initially session evolves.

How very long do clientele ordinarily see you for?

There’s truly no ordinary. I have folks who I perform with for 9 months and some folks carry on to evolve with therapy for yrs!

Are there any guides you often endorse to shoppers?

So quite a few!

I also explain to folks to pay attention to The 10 Per cent Happier Podcast—it’s a boundless source.

Do you assign “homework” concerning periods?

If you like! I will not ordinarily assign, nonetheless in some cases individuals like to go away the session with an assignment. Sometimes this is noticing a partnership between feelings, feelings and steps, placing an alarm two times a day to stop and pause and replicate- maybe give your stress and anxiety or a different emotion a ranking of 1-10. Most importantly intentions really should be realistic and manageable.

How do you assistance make sure I am producing progress in remedy?

We do a large amount of reflecting, metaprocessing. We title what is happening, what expertise are being developed, how they might have been utilized around the very last week. I tend to be incredibly engaged, so I welcome a ton of feed-back.

How do I know that it is time to start off trying to get therapy?

If you happen to be curious about therapy, you are previously engaged in the pre contemplation/contemplation stage of treatment.

How can I get ready for our very first session?

Nope—just yourself. It is really always beneficial to self mirror, so the more recognition of what is bringing you the much better- but even if that feels amorphous- we can get the job done collectively to discover and articulate these intentions.

How will I know it is time to conclusion my time in treatment with you or decrease session frequency?

It truly is different for anyone. From time to time individuals have to have a split to combine the perform we’ve carried out and then return at a later on dates.

Why ought to I request remedy, rather than turning to my husband or wife, close friends, or other cherished types?

You must generally proceed to convert to loved types for assist and connection. Working with a therapist supplies a much more neutral room from which to discover. Though a therapist however has their possess emotions and experiences, substantially life good friends and relatives, therapists have teaching to not permit their biases interfere with the function. A therapist has abilities that a buddy may well not have. Or even if your buddy is a therapist, they can not genuinely be yours. Designating 45 minutes to really sit with, replicate, practice is an extraordinary reward to be able to give oneself.

What assistance would you share with remedy seekers?

Find out about a range of modalities and speak with a quantity of therapists right before committing. You may know when you locate the ideal in shape!

Take a look at Meira’s profile to enjoy her introductory online video, go through more about her, and speak to her for an first session!