Charles Rosen, LCSW-R
Message from Charles
Hi, I'm Charles Rosen, and I appreciate your making a connection with me in this way. Working together, we can understand the difficulties you are having, and uncover your potential to make important differences for you. Since you are considering starting therapy, here’s where I imagine you might be in your thoughts currently. Maybe something has happened or you’ve recently experienced feelings that life is just not going well. Or perhaps you’re not functioning as you would like or are having trouble in some important relationships in your life. There are so many ways that you might feel scared, anxious, or stuck right now. When we start to talk about it, I can help you see that you have greater strength than you thought. You already have and can over time learn more skills that will help you get through not only the current crisis, but help you move forward in a confident way. You can learn to trust your own thinking and imagination, and start to creatively face the present and the future. I look forward to speaking with you.
About Charles's practice
Weekdays 9am - 5pm
$$$
Reflective
In-person available: Yes
Virtual available: Yes
Anxiety
Depression
Grief and Bereavement
Life Transitions
Career-Related Stress
Family Dynamics
Self-Esteem
Out of network providers
NY
Why state matters
Get to Know Charles
Where did you work before going into private practice?
I’ve worked in both mental health and medical settings. I worked in an agency that provided therapy to individuals and families. After that I worked in a large multi-specialty medical group practice in Manhattan.
What is unique about the work you do, or how have you found your work to be different than your colleagues'?
I’ve learned a way of helping at certain moments right in the session itself, where something gets “stuck.” It allows us to work on it and understand it more, right then, in the moment.
What is the best part of the work for you?
For me, it is a privilege to be able to do work which allows you to get to know another person in such depth and be of genuine help to them.
Please share 2-3 anonymized examples of how the work can play out and/or look in the room so that I can form a visual or narrative of what to expect.
One client came to me because he suffers from anxiety. Originally from a small American town, he experienced a lot of early loss as a child, and one of his parents was especially rejecting. The client has been coming to therapy for a while, and has dealt successfully with a lot of anxieties about both his marriage and his own ability to be a parent. One session, he comes in feeling worried about my responses to him–do I actually care about him? We talk about it, and recognize a repeated pattern of expecting the worst. It’s not an easy moment for him–or for me–but we come to a clearer understanding of an important pattern which really affects him in many ways. He feels very helped by this. A younger person, who is in the arts, has experienced, at times, severe anxiety about performing, sometimes leading to inhibitions in his work. He came from a supportive family, so why, he wonders, would this be? We talk about it, and together start to understand more about his wanting to be “perfect” and to please others all of the time. We keep working on this. He feels much more aware of this, and it becomes much less a factor in his work and life. A woman with a chronic, partially disabling illness needs to process how this affects her life and her relationships. She feels supported in the therapy because she can talk about some of the complicated feelings she has about her condition. Sometimes I have to point out that she is not really looking clearly at some part of it, and she values these moments, even though at times they are hard. Other times we may both enjoy a funny observation she makes about the world and her unique and highly valuable way of seeing things. She feels the work has greatly transformed her life.
Is there ever a time when you would encourage me to leave or graduate? Or how do I know when it's time to end or move on, or time to stay and explore more?
I think it is a decision we come to together, over time, based, hopefully, on a mutual understanding of the work we have done together. I think you will know when it is the right thing for you. And you can come back in the future if the need arises.
If I have never been to therapy before, what should I expect? How do I know if I should go, and how do I start?
Expect to feel relief from some of the trouble you are feeling, and a feeling that there is help for your worries, feelings and life dilemmas. If you are feeling stuck about something or a lot of things, it’s a good time to go to therapy. The best way to start is to just start–have the free phone call, and go see someone when it feels like someone you could talk to.
How will our relationship be different than relationships I have with friends/loved ones?
I hope you will feel very comfortable with me. That means, after a little while, a feeling of freedom to talk about things one might not usually talk about, even with a very close friend. Many people say they have friends they try to talk with about certain things, but the friend doesn’t quite get it, or responds with needs of their own, or offers a lot of advice that doesn’t really help. Therapy is different in a way which is hard to describe.
How should I prepare for my first session with you?
There is no need to prepare.
How participatory are you during sessions?
I want to facilitate your work and process, so I want to listen very carefully. But I do consider myself very “present” with the people I work with, and I think they sense and appreciate this.
How much do you share about yourself during our time together and why?
Presently, none of us are the “blank screen” or “mirror” that used to stereotype therapists. But the treatment is about you, not me. Whatever I contribute should be for your benefit. In my view, that means I take great care that what is on your mind guides each session. After we have been working together for a while, I may share a piece of my experience if I think it may add something useful.
How long should I commit to being in therapy, at least in the beginning?
Each person has different needs on entering therapy and different ideas of what to expect. I don’t think there’s one answer to this question.
How do you approach diversity in the room or working with clients who may come from a different background than you?
I’ve worked in communities in the city with very different groups and people of many different backgrounds. So I think I am quite comfortable with that. I’m respectful, but I don’t fool myself into thinking I know everything or don’t have things to learn.
How can you tell if I am feeling stuck, unseen, or unheard?
There should always be a channel for you to tell me such feelings. Sometimes what is most helpful is exactly understanding what feels stuck or how I am not getting it. If that’s a familiar feeling, all the more reason for us to learn from how it comes up in therapy. A person’s feeling about what I have and haven’t understood in their story is most important to me. So I want to know and hopefully I may hear or sense that.
How can you tell if I am benefiting from working with you?
Hopefully you will feel better. With good therapy comes a sense of inner conviction that something has changed or is changing for the better.
Have you received any particular training beyond your post-Bachelor's training?
Advanced training in Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy and in Psychoanalysis. Fellow of the International Psychoanalytic Association. Former Institute Director and on the faculty of a major NYC psychoanalytic training institute.
From your perspective, what is therapy?
I see therapy as a process that happens through a relationship. Clients understand more about themselves–how their minds work–as we talk about issues. I think this comes about both through the words said and also the feelings engendered both in and out of the session. The feelings and thoughts that come up about me, the therapist, and how we’re working together is an important part of the process.
Do you assign homework, activities, or readings for me to do between sessions? Why or why not?
I think that the process that occurs in the therapy room continues in an often silent way in between the sessions. It’s not the conscious effort to work on things that is usually most helpful, so if you come and work in the session, I think that’s what’s most important. We’ll certainly talk about any thoughts, feelings and experiences you have in between–and that’s really important, too. I do sometimes recommend a piece of reading if I think it might help you.
Are there any philosophies or values that inform your work that I should know about?
I believe that anyone who intimately works with people has the obligation to be highly ethical and professional and to have had a serious course of therapy or analysis themselves.