Welcome
I would like to welcome you to my website. I’m Nancy Payne, a psychotherapist in private practice in Manhattan’s Lincoln Center Area. I have designed this site to convey who I am, my therapeutic style, focus, and training, to discuss how I might address specific problems, to answer your questions, and also to convey my belief in the power of psychotherapy and the therapeutic relationship.
Covid-19 Update
I hope that you and yours are staying healthy and safe. As part of the growing concern surrounding the coronavirus, I have made the conscious decision to provide psychotherapy services remotely. My practice is currently open and I am offering telemental health sessions through HIPAA-compliant and other currently accepted video platforms, as well as by telephone.
My Therapeutic Approach
To help my clients with the diverse concerns and problems they bring to therapy, my work reflects attachment, trauma, and psychodynamic perspectives. Our psychological problems manifest on a number of levels: which is why a multi-faceted approach is most effective to facilitate change.
I honor my clients’ conscious thoughts, perspectives, and ideas about their presenting issues and also explore feelings, symptoms, and body sensations that are less conscious, confusing and often painful, but may be clues to these problems. My clients are often perplexed by habits and behaviors they assumed are just “who they are”, when in fact these thoughts and behaviors may be related to long-held unconscious memories of trauma, loss, or shame. Our work together can address, integrate, and reduce the impact of these memories.
.
.
TRAUMA AND COMPLEX PTSD
The experience of child abuse and other forms of interpersonal trauma overwhelm our minds and bodies, especially when the source of our trauma is also a primary source of attachment. Posttraumatic stress, which includes intrusive memories, feeling numbness or terror, difficulty controlling emotions, nightmares, and trouble sleeping, is an expectable reaction to trauma and abuse. It can influence how we manage our romantic attachments, friendships, work relationships, and parenting.
DEPRESSION AND MOOD DISORDERS
Everyone feels sad or low at times. If you are noticing that your mood is sad or low most of the time, that you have lost interest in and motivation to do things you normally enjoy, that your sleep, appetite, and energy have changed, and that you are feeling down on yourself, you may be experiencing depression. Whether depression is a reaction to an event in your life, a re-occurrence of something you have felt before or something you have struggled with for years, it is an illness, not a sign of weakness.
ANXIETY, STRESS, AND PANIC
Anxiety is a normal human emotion and can be a reaction to stressors such as a demanding job, a serious problem in an important relationship, a medical diagnosis, or making a major decision.
However, if you are experiencing worry and tension, are edgy and “keyed up”, are irritable, have muscle tension, have difficulty sleeping and concentrating, or experience unexplained panic – heart palpitations, sweating, dizziness, trembling, queasiness, or intense dread, you may have an anxiety disorder.
TRAUMA HISTORY, PREGNANCY, AND PARENTING
Becoming pregnant for the first time and the prospect of being a new mother bring a wealth of expected worries and concerns. Women who have had experiences of early trauma, childhood abuse or significant loss however, may have an additional set of concerns. They may wonder if their high stress levels, mood fluctuations or anxiety can affect their health and their baby’s health during pregnancy. They may also have trepidation about whether the way they were parented might affect how they will interact with their new baby. These are very legitimate concerns, shared by many, and help is available.