EMILY STUART, LCSW
Psychotherapist
About Me
Pronouns: she/her/hers
All effective therapy begins with a strong relationship. Therapy gets to be a space where that relationship is intentional, warm, and direct. I work to build an environment and a relationship that is deeply supportive and open and that also creates the conditions to give hard feedback and disrupt the status quo.
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Therapy is a space that's about and for you, where we can collaboratively work toward a better understanding of why and how you are the way you are, identify and break out of patterns, foster your strengths, and develop a new way of relating to emotional experience. I see therapy as a spontaneous, playful, and flexible process tailored to the individual. My style is warm, intuitive, relational, and individualized to who you are and what you need.
My approach prioritizes a balance of concrete interventions to address immediate distress alongside thoughtful exploration of historical issues, such as family history and trauma, and contextual issues, such as the intersection of love, work, social life, and larger sociopolitical systems with emotional struggle. With this balance I aim to help make tomorrow better than today while also working toward better understanding what might be underlying the current pain so we can get to the root of it to make for lasting change.
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I work primarily from a psychodynamic lens and draw from a number of modalities, including mindfulness practice, family systems theory, IFS, CBT, feminist, and relational therapy. I work from a political and anti-oppressive framework. As a white woman, I understand this to include my own lifelong work, and bringing my own identities into the room where appropriate, while aiming to understand a client’s experience within the broader context of systems of power and oppression. I am an LGBTQIA+ affirming provider.
Background & Education
In private practice I’ve worked with individuals of all ages, from children to senior citizens. I have provided short-term, client-centered therapy to students at Barnard College’s counseling center around depression, anxiety, eating and body image concerns, identity development, acute stress and trauma, and navigating racial, ethnic, class, and LGBTQIA+ identities. While at Barnard I also offered substance use counseling, education, and outreach using a harm-reduction approach. I have also worked in a school setting with children living in temporary housing, offering individual and group therapy as well as advocating for kids' and families' needs both within and outside of the school system. I developed a dynamic approach to therapy with kids, combining play therapy, art making, storytelling, and other therapeutic methods that continue to inform my creative practice of therapy with all ages today.
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With a former career in publishing, I value language and narrative, and I understand the power of the stories we tell about ourselves and the stories other people—both in our lives and in the larger sociopolitical context—tell about us. In therapy, I work to help clients find and tell their stories in ways that work for them and that strive for clarity, insight, and accuracy, including integrating the painful parts into their larger narrative. I see this as a deeply healing act that helps make sense of who clients are and what they’ve experienced.
​I am a Licensed Clinical Social Worker. I got my BA at Colby College in English Literature and my MSW from Columbia University.