Mary Zayman, LCSW
NYC Psychotherapy

Mary Zayman, NYC Psychotherapy
80 East 11th Street, Suite 322 New York, NY 10003
(347)446-6140     zaymanmary@aol.com

People seek psychotherapy because they are experiencing a problem or stress in some part of their life, most commonly a relationship or work related one. Other people may feel that "there must be more to life than this." Whatever brings an individual in for therapy, it would be safe to say that some aspect of his or her current situation is either causing distress, or is, in some way, lacking. Another universal experience is of being stuck in a repetitive pattern which seems to make no sense yet is difficult to change. Effective psychotherapy must address both the sources of distress and the forward-looking vision of the kind of life, relationships and professional satisfaction that are desired. The client and the psychotherapist together come to identify and understand what is causing distress, what is blocking the way to overcoming the problem, and how to move towards more satisfying and healthy ways of being and relating to others.

A central aspect of what causes suffering is not just the problem itself, it is the perception of the problem as somehow shameful, or irrational. I often hear statements such as "I shouldn't feel this way," "It's selfish to think so much about myself," or "I must be crazy." I firmly believe that no matter how dysfunctional a behavior is, it is an adaptation to a real experience, or environmental condition, either past or present. Just understanding that our behavior is rooted in our histories often relieves people of self-berating or obsessive thinking, and frees up the energy needed to make sense of problems and to work towards resolving them.

I'd like to address a key question that people often raise about what is most beneficial to focus on in psychotherapy. Often clients are confused about the concept of "digging into their past," and consider it pointless. Conversely, some clients want only to talk about the past, and not look at their current problems. What I believe and practice as a New York psychotherapist is the third path, the one that both looks back and forward, to different degrees as needed to foster growth. While I agree with the old adage "insight is not enough," I think that it is insight alone that is insufficient. Healing takes place in the paradoxical moment of being in two places at once, of knowing what we feel and experience right now while simultaneously being aware of the past, with its full range of emotional experiences, constrictions and self limiting beliefs. When the past is embedded in the present we are enslaved to it, in a type of trance. To gain full emotional insight is to wake up into the present moment. From this more fully open place comes the creation of the new.