Emily Genetta, LMSW
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Message from Emily
I'm so glad you've started this journey to improve your mental wellbeing. I know how difficult beginnings can be—I’ve worked with a number of first-time and returning therapy clients from backgrounds as diverse as New York City itself. I particularly enjoy working with LGBTQIA+ clients and people with disabilities and neurodivergences. I do my best to honor your cultural experience as we tackle some of life’s biggest challenges together: depression and anxiety, trauma and grief, chronic illness and medical issues, relationship difficulties and life transitions, and problematic drug use or other behaviors that may no longer serving you. I’ve worked with many folks in kink/BDSM, poly/ENM, and sex worker communities, as well as those just beginning to question their sexual or relationship preferences and those who have more complicated relationships with trading sexual services across the spectrum of choice, circumstance, and coercion. You deserve to feel supported in your therapeutic journey, whether sexual preferences/ practices/ labor are issues of clinical concern for you, or whether they’re just another facet of who you are. My own career began in worker organizing, then moved into community social work and social policy research. I have a deep appreciation for how relationships and social realities impact mental health and prioritize a relational and social change-oriented approach. Disability justice, racial justice, and gender justice are core tenants of my practice. My work is also influenced by my own experiences as a therapy client: I strive to be as transparent as possible about what we’re doing and why, so you can be a full partner on the journey and never feel left in the dark. Above all, I am person-centered: I start by learning who you are as an individual, your strengths and challenges, and then figure out which clinical approaches can work best for you. I often draw from Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT), Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT), and Acceptance & Commitment Therapy (ACT) and am pursuing further training in these modalities. I very much look forward to meeting you and taking this journey together!
About Emily's practice
Weekdays After 5pm
Weekends 9am - 5pm
Weekdays 9am - 5pm
$$
Sliding scale
Directive
Reflective
In-person available: No
Virtual available: Yes
Sexual Identity
Career-Related Stress
Women's Obstacles
Existential Crisis or Transition
Chronic Illness
Depression
LGBTQIA-Related Stress
Anxiety
United Healthcare Shared Services
Cigna
Aetna
NY
Why state matters
Get to Know Emily
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?
This really depends on who you are as an individual and why you're in therapy. For some people, psychotherapy is an optional journey of self-discovery. If you are one of these folks, chances are good that you feel functional in most aspects of life, and if so, I would encourage you to continue with therapy for only as long as it feels insightful and meaningful to do so. For many other people, psychotherapy is a 1-2 year process to restore their mental health to full functionality after a particularly difficult time in their lives. These folks may return to therapy in times of extreme stress when extra support is needed, but they otherwise manage daily life fine without it. If your symptoms are greatly diminished or well controlled after 12-24 months, I will talk to you about what moving on from our therapeutic relationship can look like. For yet another group of people, mental health challenges are lifelong and more akin to chronic illness. If you feel this describes you, you have likely struggled with symptoms on and off for years or decades, and you may have periods when you function relatively well (symptom remission) and other periods of time when symptoms flare. You will likely benefit from ongoing therapeutic support, though you may choose to take a break when your symptoms are in remission. Our goal in this case is to help you reduce symptoms, to the point of remission if possible, and to extend those periods of remission. We can then decide whether it feels better to take a break or to continue meeting, likely less frequently than when you are struggling.
How can you tell if I am benefiting from working with you?
This depends on how long we've been working together. Psychotherapy is a much slower process than most forms of healthcare, and you should be wary of anyone who promises fixes that are both quick and long-lasting. The slow progression can feel frustrating sometimes, so it's important to have clear expectations! The first 3-6 months, I am mostly focused on building a sense of trust and understanding in our relationship (commonly called "rapport"). During this time, I am looking for signs that you feel increasingly comfortable talking with me and that you feel I'm really hearing what you're saying. After this initial stage, I look for signs that you are reflecting more deeply on what you're sharing and that you're really hearing me in turn. By 6-9 months, you can expect to experience improvement in symptoms, and I will be checking in on how you feel you're progressing. The 9-12 month mark should bring more significant and longer lasting changes. I will be looking for differences in how you're responding to stress and for improvements in your relationships and quality of life. This process can be complicated by unexpected life events, major losses, or new traumas. Often, people will return to therapy upon experiencing a break-up, medical diagnosis, job loss, or other big stressor and may need to try new kinds of therapy or new therapeutic techniques. If you ever feel that what we're doing isn't working, I encourage you to let me know so we can address it!
How much do you share about yourself during our time together and why?
There is a common misconception, even among some therapists, that therapists should never talk about themselves. I don't think that's true! However, because therapy is about you and your needs, I only share personal information that I believe will be helpful to you on your therapeutic journey. This can be a delicate balance. For example, I am open about living with chronic illness, because I want clients with chronic illness to know I have an understanding of the issue on an embodied level, and because I believe it's important to model what living with chronic illness can look like. But! If I talk about my own challenges too much, it takes the focus away from yours and gives the impression that I don't need to listen to you about how your experiences may be different. So, it is unlikely I will discuss it in much detail during our sessions.
How will our relationship be different than relationships I have with friends/loved ones?
Most relationships in our lives are ones of mutual emotional support, which is a good thing! The big exception to this rule is caregiving relationships, like those between parents and children. Therapy is a kind of care work, in that the focus is on you and your issues and never on me and mine. Receiving this kind of care can be critically important when you're really struggling, and it's especially helpful for relearning how to have relationships when your initial caregiving relationships with parents or guardians were extra difficult or outright harmful. Even if you have an ongoing, healthy and loving relationship with a caregiver, chances are pretty good they are not equipped with therapeutic tools to help you transform destructive thoughts and behaviors. That's where the therapist comes in!
How do you approach diversity in the room or working with clients who may come from a different background than you?
Cultural humility is critical to my practice as a white mental healthcare provider from a Christian background. It means that I: -strive to recognize what I don’t know about the cultures of people of other races, ethnicities, nationalities, and religions -continually educate myself on their cultural practices, with the understanding that I always have more to learn and -as a cultural outsider, I can never understand those cultures to the same extent as someone who lives with it -I also recognize that I may have different experiences of my own culture and subcultures than other people who share my identities, and -I make space during our sessions to discuss these differences. My goal is to make sure you feel heard and understood without having to take time from our therapy sessions to educate me.
From your perspective, what is therapy?
I understand psychotherapy to be a collection of evidence-based practices that are focused on improving mental health and wellness. These "therapeutic modalities" (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy/CBT, Dialectical Behavioral Therapy/DBT, etc.) help us reflect on and change our thought patterns, our emotional reactions, our habitual behaviors, and our relationships with the people and things that matter most. Therapy isn't all about *getting rid* of problematic thoughts/feelings/actions but transforming them and learning new ways of being.