Description
This is a “here-and-now” experience with others aimed at helping people to deepen their self-awareness and insight into patterns in their relationships. In verbalizing thoughts and feelings about themselves and others in the moment, members increase their capacity for authentic connection, and are able to try out new behaviors and ways of relating in a safe interpersonal environment. Group members provide support for one another as they move through challenges in group and in life.
Members should have some experience (at least two years) in individual psychodynamic therapy. Prior to joining the group, potential members will meet with me at least once to assess fit; the assessment is free of charge.
Group Therapist
Melissa Walker is a psychotherapist practicing with individuals, couples, and groups. Many people working with Melissa struggle with depression or anxiety. They may have trouble finding or holding on to meaningful connections with others, uncertainties about their career or life path, creative blocks, difficulty navigating major life transitions, or they may have too much (or not enough!) conflict with others. Melissa is particularly skilled at working with those who have endured challenging dynamics in their family lives, and also has expertise in working with adults who were adopted in infancy or childhood.
Melissa is trained in psychodynamic psychotherapy. This means that she takes into account the whole person, including their current circumstances, strengths, and challenges, the forces that have shaped them, those aspects of themselves that they are consciously aware of, and those parts sitting just outside awareness. Melissa is passionate about helping people better understand the connections between their past experiences and patterns in their current lives and relationships. Melissa listens attentively, with respect and curiosity, helping people put words to inner experience. Through this process, insight and self-awareness grow, along with a wider array of possibilities for oneself.
Melissa received her MSW from the Hunter College School of Social Work, and went on to obtain advanced post-graduate training in psychoanalysis at the Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Study Center. She worked in community mental health centers where she gained extensive experience with complex and acute trauma, on inpatient psychiatric units focused on the treatment of eating disorders, schizophrenia, and other psychiatric conditions, and in a day treatment program for troubled adolescents. In addition to her work with her own clients, Melissa provides clinical consultation to early-career therapists individually and in groups, and is an instructor in a post-graduate certificate program for mental health clinicians.
