Questions About Therapy at My AP Therapy

If you have been doing research before reaching out, this page is for you. You do not need to have the right words or a clear sense of what is wrong before you contact me.

About Amanda and My AP Therapy

  • I work with high-functioning adults in New York City and Westchester whose anxiety never fully powers down. People who look capable and steady from the outside while running on empty underneath. Adults navigating demanding careers, complicated relationships, or the weight of being the person everyone counts on. Whose nervous system is rarely at ease even when nothing is actively wrong.

    A significant number of the people I work with are also navigating a chronic health condition alongside their anxiety. Whether a diagnosis has produced the anxiety or anxiety has expressed itself in the body through chronic stress, fatigue, or persistent physical symptoms, the intersection of physical and emotional experience is something I work with directly. You can read more on the Anxiety and Chronic Illness page.

    I also have specific depth working with Jewish adults navigating anxiety shaped by identity, family systems, and collective history.

  • Most anxiety therapy focuses on managing symptoms better, including identifying anxious thoughts, challenging them, building coping skills. That approach helps many people. It also has a ceiling. The people who find their way to me have usually already hit it.

    My primary framework is Internal Family Systems, or IFS. Rather than asking the anxious parts of your system to think differently, IFS gets curious about what those parts have been protecting and what they actually need. That distinction changes what the work feels like and what it produces. You can read more on the IFS Therapy page.

  • I am a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW) in New York State, a Certified Clinical Trauma Professional (CCTP), and IFS Level 1 Trained through the IFS Institute. I hold a Master of Social Work from New York University, where I graduated as valedictorian in 2019. I am listed in the IFS Institute practitioner directory.

  • My practice is fully virtual. I am licensed in New York State and can see clients who are physically located in New York during our sessions — including New York City, Westchester County, and anywhere else in the state. I do not offer in-person sessions at this time.

Getting started and the consultation

  • It is a 15-minute conversation by phone or video. I will ask you a few questions about what brings you to therapy. You share as much or as little as feels right. You do not need to have the right words or a clear sense of what is wrong. I will tell you a little about how I work and you can ask me anything. If we both feel like it is a good fit, we schedule a first session. If I think you would be better served by a different kind of provider, I will tell you that honestly. No paperwork before the call, no pressure during it, no commitment after it.

  • Functioning and being okay are not the same thing. Most of the people I work with are high-achieving and capable by every external measure. They are also exhausted in ways that are hard to name, carrying a vigilance that never fully powers down, and quietly wondering how much longer they can keep running at this pace. You do not need to be in crisis or at a breaking point. The recognition that something is costing you more than it should is enough.

  • This is one of the most common things I hear. Previous therapy was often helpful at the surface level. Things felt somewhat better for a while, but the underlying pattern reasserted itself. IFS-informed therapy operates at a different level. Rather than building a toolkit for managing anxiety, it gets curious about what is driving it. For people who have done some work and are ready to go further, this tends to produce a qualitatively different result.

  • The consultation is the best way to find out. Most people know fairly quickly whether it feels like the right fit. What I can tell you is that I tend to work well with people who are self-aware and analytical, who have been frustrated by therapy that felt too generic or too passive, and who are ready to understand the pattern rather than just manage it better.

  • No. You do not need to walk me through your full history before the work can begin. We start from where you are and what is most present for you. Things from earlier in your life come up as they become relevant to what you are carrying now, not as a required intake process.

How I work

  • Sessions are relational, collaborative, and paced to what your system can tolerate. They are not structured around worksheets or homework. Something comes up (a feeling, a pattern, a reaction) and rather than analyzing it from a distance, we turn toward it with curiosity. We ask what it is, what it is afraid of, what it needs. The answers are often surprising and more specific than people expect. Most clients describe the experience as different from any therapy they have had before — more direct, more internal, and more precise.

  • No. IFS does not ask you to dismantle the parts of you that keep things running. It gets curious about them. The part that stays in control, that plans obsessively, that keeps everything stable — in IFS we do not try to eliminate that part. We try to understand what it has been protecting and what it would need to ease its vigilance. For high-functioning adults, this is one of the most important distinctions. The work is not about becoming less capable. It is about understanding what has been driving the capability.

  • Directly, and with specific attention to the anxiety-body intersection that chronic illness produces. The monitoring that never turns off, the identity disruption of a body that requires constant management, the grief of the plans that changed. These are not peripheral to the work. They are central to it. Sessions are virtual, which means no travel on difficult days. The pace is always yours.

  • Yes. IFS is specifically designed to be non-retraumatizing. We work with protective parts first and approach more vulnerable material only when enough safety exists in the relationship and the internal system. For people who have found other trauma approaches overwhelming or retraumatizing, IFS often provides a genuinely different experience.

  • IFS is paced carefully by design. Nothing gets opened before the system is ready. Most people feel more settled after sessions, not more destabilized, not because the work is shallow but because it respects what the system can tolerate. If something ever feels like too much, the work pauses. You are in charge of the pace.

  • This varies depending on what you are carrying and the pace that feels right. Many people notice a meaningful shift in how they relate to their anxiety within the first few months. Not a disappearance of anxiety but a different relationship to it, one with more space and less urgency. Deeper structural change typically takes longer. I do not work from a fixed protocol or a predetermined number of sessions.

  • Yes. Everything discussed in therapy is confidential with a small number of legally required exceptions: imminent risk of harm to yourself or others, and specific reporting requirements related to child or elder abuse. I will explain these clearly when we start working together.

Fees and insurance

  • My session fee is $250 per session.

  • I am an out-of-network provider and do not bill insurance directly. I provide superbills after each session, which you can submit to your insurance company for potential reimbursement if you have out-of-network benefits. Many clients receive partial reimbursement this way. I recommend calling your insurance company before we start to ask about your out-of-network mental health benefits.

  • A superbill is a detailed receipt that includes everything your insurance company needs to process a reimbursement claim — the session date, service code, diagnosis code, and my license information. I provide these after each session. You submit them directly to your insurance company. If you have out-of-network mental health benefits, your insurance may reimburse a portion of the fee depending on your plan.

  • Call the member services number on the back of your insurance card and ask: Do I have out-of-network mental health benefits? What is my deductible and has it been met? What percentage of the session fee will be reimbursed after the deductible? Is there a session limit per year? Having these answers before we start gives you a clear picture of your likely out-of-pocket cost.

  • A limited number of sliding scale spots are available for those who qualify. If cost is a concern, please mention it when you reach out and we can discuss what might be possible.

  • It is worth doing the math on your out-of-network benefits before deciding. Many clients with good insurance coverage find their actual out-of-pocket cost is significantly lower than the session fee once reimbursement is factored in. If cost is still a concern after checking your benefits, bring it up when we talk. I would rather find a workable arrangement than have someone not get support they need.

Chronic illness and specific populations

  • No. And I want to be direct about this because it is one of the most common reasons people with chronic illness are reluctant to try therapy. I am not here to suggest that your symptoms are psychological or that positive thinking will improve your health. I am here to address the emotional dimension of living with a health condition that has required this much management: the anxiety, the grief, the identity disruption, the nervous system that never fully unwinds. That experience deserves care on its own terms, not because it will necessarily change your physical picture.

  • Yes. The anticipatory dread before appointments, the scanning for signs that something might be changing, the inability to rest during stable periods. These are specific and recognizable patterns in people navigating chronic illness, and they are exactly what IFS addresses directly. Understanding the part of you that is doing the monitoring, rather than trying to manage it, tends to produce more lasting relief than coping strategies alone.

  • Yes. The experience of being disbelieved or minimized by the healthcare system is its own form of harm and it shows up in therapy in specific ways: self-doubt about physical experience, over-explaining, a learned reluctance to trust what your body is telling you. I understand this pattern and work with it directly rather than treating it as background noise.

  • Yes, and I have specific depth in this area. I understand how Jewish identity, family systems, intergenerational history, and the current moment shape anxiety in ways that standard therapy rarely reaches. The obligation that feels like love. The expectation of strength. The background awareness that safety is not guaranteed. You do not have to explain the context before the work can begin. The Therapy for the Jewish Community page speaks to this directly.

  • Yes. Some of the most consistent positive feedback I have received has come from male clients, specifically around the directness of the IFS framework and the experience of not having to perform emotional openness in a way that felt unfamiliar. High-achieving men in particular often find that the analytical nature of IFS (giving the internal experience a map and a framework) makes the work feel more accessible than they expected.

  • Yes. Skepticism often means you think carefully and have high standards for what actually produces results. IFS tends to appeal to people who think this way because it is structured and gives the internal experience a framework that makes sense, rather than asking you to access feelings in ways that feel foreign or ungrounded. The 15-minute consultation costs nothing and commits you to nothing. If it does not feel right, you have lost fifteen minutes.

Still have a question?

The consultation is free and there is no pressure to commit. If you have been doing research and still are not sure, a conversation is the best next step.

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My AP Therapy serves adults across New York City and Westchester County. Virtual therapy available throughout New York State.