Gottman Method Couples therapists in New York

I create a collaborative and nonjudgmental space for clients who are ready to make meaningful changes and live more authentically. I specialize in working with people who have spent much of their lives people-pleasing or prioritizing others, and who are now ready to reconnect with their own needs, values, and voices. As an Asian American woman, I bring lived experience and cultural humility into my work, and am deeply committed to creating a safe, affirming space for people of color and members of marginalized communities.  

Having worked for a decade, I have supported clients through the nuanced and demanding areas of interpersonal stress, major life transitions, identity exploration, and the long-lasting impact of early adverse childhood experiences. I hold particular care and awareness towards the cultural, relational, and systemic forces that shape a person’s sense of self. I feel especially attuned to how family histories and early attachments influence adult relationships, therefore, I often invite clients to explore identity, unlearn old narratives, and build relationships that feel grounded and authentic. My unique, yet collective experiences as a child of immigrant parents and a South Asian woman allow me to recognize how family expectations, cultural identity, gender identity, and other parts of ourselves are important in the therapy work.  

My name is Elaine Hernandez-Cordova, but my friends all call me Elena! I am an Omnistic, bi-sexual, Latin-American psychotherapist, life coach and author. For the last 20 years, I have dedicated my life to practicing a holistic approach to lifestyle adjustments for myself, my family and the systems we all reside in. I like to consider all of humanity to be my family, and I try to reflect this in my work. I was born in an impoverished part of Brooklyn, NY where I was adopted by a prominent lawyer and his wife who couldn’t bear children due to an early battle with cancer. This inspired my natural inclination to bond with people, both personally and professionally, and maintain meaningful connections. Seeing how imbalanced our society was, and eager to be the change I wanted to see in the world, I studied for a Master of Social Work from the School of Public Health at the University of Central Florida in 2003. I became increasingly interested in the mind-body connection, and so I became a yoga therapist in 2013 through the Long Island Yoga School. I provide therapeutic services in relation to addiction and post-traumatic stress pro-bono at local hospitals and community centers. My personal experiences and professional expertise in mental health and substance use afford me powerful insight into the healing practices of the dually diagnosed. I am a proud social advocate, and regularly devote time to visit with veterans, inmates, consumers and the underserved. I encourage people to take time to write letters, make phone calls, sign petitions, send emails and donate to causes that matter to the unique values of the individual. Don’t be afraid of being a voice in the community of your choice. If you don’t stand for something then you will fall for anything!  

Madailein O"Donnell is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor who is currently accepting new patients in the state of New York. Madailein specializes in treating personality disorders, trauma, and mood disorders. She currently accepts the following insurances: Aetna, Optum, Carelon Behavioral Health, Oscar, Cigna, United Healthcare, and Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield of New York.  

My goal as a therapist is to create a warm, supportive, genuine and safe environment where you alone or with your significant other feel comfortable sharing with me your negative repetitive pattern that prevents you from from sailing through your relationship more smoothly. I want to help you to reinvent your marriage or long term relationship so that your lives intersect in the same space so I can get the opportunity to teach you how to respect each other's differences and teach you how you can agree to disagree and yet you are still able to say "I love you." I can help you both to come up with a common love language when you are home and happy or not so happy; and I can also teach you another love language that works well publicly. One works well in the bedroom and the other works well in front of strangers. All couples must develop love languages that work well privately and publicly. I want your relationship to maintain the love that brought you together in the first place. You may wonder why your love is not consistent, and you may notice that the respect you once had for one another has dissipated and the personal meaning once attached to your relationship is no longer there.. Most couples in your situation have what I refer to as their own "dance of anger" that happens again and again and again. By this, I mean couples fight about different issues but the way that they fight takes on a repetitive negative pattern and that pattern is their way of expressing anger and/or rage, regardless of the argument at hand. I refer to the way that most couples argue and fight as their "dance of anger". Remember, you can't change your partner and that is why you need professional advice. I can be your "go to person" who can teach you how to effectively communicate when you once again have disagreements that can be a threat to the survival of your relationship. I only accept accept couples who really want to preserve their relationship and can tell me that they are willing to put in the hard work, because married monogamous relationships are difficult to sustain, but by taking your marriage vows seriously, you both signed up for a loving partnership for a lifetime. Taking your vows and dancing at your wedding is just not enough because everyone's life is difficult. Life is more like "a bowl of cherries" and despite the succulent juice from the cherries, you will still have to deal with "the pits." We can't always dance through our problems. Despite making yourselves an expensive wedding or having gone to the court to take your vows,-what all married couples dwell on is trust. Is one person feeling like they don't trust the other or both feel the same way when it comes to trust, then pick up your phone to call Lorna Hayim-Baker at Riverdale Therapy & Counseling Services. I offer a free phone consultation before accepting new couples. I tell the truth when I counsel couples, and therefore, I vet each couple before I agree to meet with them in an "in person session" to avoid sessions where one partner or both can blow up my session because their personality does not mesh well with mine. My heart goes out to everyone who is about to experience "a bad breakup" or "a disastrous divorce.". I go many extra miles for each and every couple who comes into my office. I try to understand their shared stories and having a shared story is a lot easier to problem solve because they are in sync; but more often than not, I have to hear out each partner because they each have different stories to tell. I decipher their own personal stories because, in reality, there are two different versions of the same presenting problem and then their is the third version which is the most realistic story. It is only fair to hear each partner's voice as they often come to session offering their own point of view, but if one pays close attention, it often seems like there are 2-3 different problems; but in reality, there are two different sides about he same problem and sometimes even a third side that the therapist discovers and is being presented by each person. All three stories are different versions of the same problem. All sides are carefully listened to and It takes time to hear each person's interpretation of the same arguments. All stories are aired and I do my best to come up with possible solutions by providing lots of feedback. Couples can disagree with me about possible solutions that are offered. I have become very attuned to my couples because I have been doing this type of therapy for a very long time. I listen carefully to their presenting problems before providing feedback. I am not always right but I am pretty intuitive at this point in my career. Someone must try to understand the couple who came in to preserve their relationship and the hope is that I, as their therapist will remain neutral and unbiased in order to shed light on why the couples are not hearing each other as they each struggle to voice their complaints. More often than not, one or both partners become very defensive and neither one is listening to the other and their fight escalates. That's why they need an unbiased and caring therapist to intervene and help the couple deescalate by having them share the details of the original complaint that turned into a communication breakdown. Couples begin fighting right in front of me & my job is to stop their dispute and call a halt to their bickering so we can examine why their communication pattern broke down in the first place. Both partners are acting out and becoming nasty and defensive. Each partner had the same wish, which was to have their voice heard as he or she expresses their own complaint. I need to point out when their wheels are spinning but they are getting nowhere and they are in fact, stuck. Couples need to stop and listen to each other so I can help them come up with a plan that can get them "unstuck." To be an effective couples' counselor means that at the end of the session, the couple walks out with a sense of having a shared understanding of their problems and with a shared sense of hope because they learned how to tackle the types of ineffective communications that lead to "blow out fights" Hopefully, I will be your therapist who teaches you how to not add fuel to the fire. I want to be part of the solution and teach couples how to stop turning molehills into mountains. I am the therapist who loves watching love as it grows and makes both partners seem so much more mature.