Hi! I'm Rebecca. I work with people in practical ways to change patterns that are happening in their lives, sleep, and physical health. My goal is to work together with you so that you can learn new skills, practice them between our sessions, and feel better faster.

I became a therapist because I wanted to help others feel understood and make positive life changes. While in graduate school at NYU, I became especially interested in in how our brains change based off of what we do and how we think. This led me to practice cognitive behavior therapy (CBT), which helps people learn new skills and change their brain's default modes of processing. I found these action and brain changes to be exciting! I like using CBT and research-based methods to help people change their brains long-term.

I work in several areas of sleep, including insomnia, chronic nightmares, and CPAP support. For insomnia, I'll work with you using CBT-I, a research-back approach shown to improve your sleep quality and length. We'll work on thought patterns that keep sleep issues going, sleep schedules and routines to help improve your sleep rhythms, sleep hygiene, and stress management to improve your sleep. For nightmares, I use a short-term structured approach called CBT-N which uses techniques like scripts, imagery, and relaxation to change or decrease your nightmares. If you have sleep apnea and a CPAP machine, I can work with you on techniques to get used to using your CPAP and to sleep better with it at night.

Anxiety can feel overwhelming, but there are ways to manage and decrease it--both in the moment and long-term by learning new skills. I'll work with you to identify and change thought patterns that trigger or maintain your anxiety, ways to calm your body's fight-or-flight responses, and step-by-step plans to approach anxiety-provoking situations so that your mind and body can learn not to fear them moving forward. I do this all in a supportive and compassionate way to help you feel empowered and safe.

Ongoing pain and illness can change our lives, but don't need to have exclusive control. I work with people to identify ways they can learn to manage their pain experiences by looking at thoughts about pain, new behavior strategies, and physical relaxation techniques. I want you to be able to reconnect with what's important to you, have fewer interruptions in your life from your pain, and know how to reduce pain's power in your life so that you can continue to live focusing on what's important to you.

CBT works by showing our brain new ways of functioning, processing, and responding to our experiences. This happens as we make changes to our thoughts and actions in the present. Many people find that their lives improve more quickly because of the present-focused changes, and science also shows that the brain responds by changing its ways of operating over time.