About Lindsey Wolfram, Ph.D.
Psychology Fellow

“Everybody is dealing with how much of their own aliveness they can bear…” – Adam Phillips

In all of my clinical work, my overarching goal is to cultivate each patient’s ability to use their own mind—to learn, to decide, to think with greater clarity and to feel with greater honesty and authenticity.

I believe it’s my job to understand what keeps you stuck in your way of being, unable to change despite wanting to. I also believe that carving out new paths for yourself requires immense bravery and the will to do things differently, which is at once startingly simple but often profoundly difficult. I have a warm and accepting but honest and direct therapeutic style. Patients often describe me as welcoming, curious and attuned and often express appreciation for my deep and abiding interest in who they are and how their mind works.

My training and experience help me attune to and understand the unique sources of pain in each patient’s life—that is, those factors that not only cause your suffering, but that perpetuate it and, often, make your pain more difficult for you to resolve on your own. Further, though, the distinctive terrain of each person’s psychological make-up demands that I remain open to and inquisitive about who you are. My approach to therapy is therefore not stagnant, but adapts to each individual sitting across me as our conversation together unfolds.

 I have extensive experience with adults and young adults struggling with anxiety and OCD, depression, and feelings of emptiness and dissociation. I also have a considerable experience with relationship difficulties—family relationships, friendships, romantic relationships, and everything in between—which are a good fit for my relational, attachment-informed approach. I find that what leads one to seek therapy is not always active distress, but often feels more like passive discontent: the feeling that something is off or missing. Alongside the desire to feel better is the fundamentally human desire to realize one’s self to one’s fullest potential, and to face ourselves, begrudgingly but honestly, even when we fear that we have not yet achieved this potential.

Availability: I provide in-person therapy in New York City, and telehealth sessions across New York state.

Specialties

My Approach

I work from a relational and psychoanalytic perspective, which means I view our experience of relationships—both current ones and our attachment to early caregivers—as central to the formation of our psyches and, therefore, also essential to our growth and healing. In each session, I pay careful attention to the ways in which patients protect themselves from feelings that were once dangerous to feel, and often help patients tolerate difficult emotions by sitting together with them in this experience. This is not to cause discomfort, but to increase your understanding of and ability to respond to challenging emotions, to help you feel more empowered and attuned to your emotions and have a greater sense of agency in your life and relationships.

At times I also incorporate more concrete skills-based approaches from Cognitive-Behavioral (CBT) and Dialectical-Behavioral (DBT) frameworks, integrating them as indicated based on each patient’s unique needs and presentation. For instance, these more structured approaches can be particularly helpful when patients are struggling with intense and overwhelming trauma reactions or the types of emotional dysregulation often associated with personality disorders.

 I have a warm, deeply empathic but direct interpersonal style, and do not shy away from confrontation and challenge when needed or potentially helpful. I bring to my work a deep interest in people and their worlds both inner and outer, with all their faults and virtues, and look to foster an honest conversation about who you are, how you think and feel, and how you relate to others.

My Background

Before discovering my interest in psychology, I trained intensively as a dancer and performer. My time in the arts influenced me deeply, and I feel my experience as a performer has shaped my perspective on the nature of human connection and relatedness.

 As a psychologist, I’m fortunate to have learned and grown through a remarkably diverse range of clinical experiences. I received my Ph.D. from the Derner School of Psychology at Adelphi University, where I served as a therapist for several years during my clinical training, conducting long-term individual as well as group therapy. Prior to my doctoral training I worked with mentally ill New Yorkers in social services as a case manager, where I gained familiarity and comfortability working intimately with people vastly different than myself. I also trained clinically across multiple settings— first in private practice, then in a VA hospital, a college counseling center, and eventually in a city hospital, before coming back to a private practice setting. I also have strong interests in group therapy and have often had opportunities to facilitate interpersonal process groups across these settings.

 I feel very fortunate to have had this breadth of experience, and feel it continues to be a huge advantage in my work and my growth as a clinician. It has, for instance, encouraged me to connect with people vastly different than myself, and this informs my approach with each individual patient I meet. I’ve worked with patients at every rung of the socioeconomic ladder, and consider it a significant strength to have experience with a racially, ethnically, and religiously diverse patient population. Doing clinical work in such diverse settings has also introduced me to both the wide variety and broad range of severity of clinical symptoms and presentations. These experiences continue to inform my curious, empathic, person-centered understanding of psychological distress, a perspective I carry with me into each new clinical experience.

Education, Training & Experience

Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology, Derner School of Psychology at Adelphi University

Postdoctoral Fellow in Advanced Psychotherapy, The Flatiron Center for Psychotherapy

Certificate in Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP)

  • NYC Health + Hospitals – North Central Bronx Hospital

  • Baruch College Counseling Center

  • Brooklyn VA Medical Center

  • SelfWorks Therapy Group

  • Derner Child and Family Center

  • Adelphi Center for Psychological Services

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