MyTherapistNewYork

I have spent much of my life curious about human nature and the principles that
organize our thoughts, feelings and behaviors. My ongoing search has led me to
an in-depth study of Western Psychology, culminating in a master’s in Counseling
Psychology and the pursuit of licensing as a Marriage and Family Therapist. I have
also dedicated well over a decade to my yoga practice and a sincere examination of
the Tantrik arts and sciences, emanating from various spiritual systems.
My discoveries have convinced me of the ever-evolving nature of our psyches and
our innate flexibility for change and transformation (for better or for worse.) I
believe that it is every human’s birthright to gracefully experience a full range of
human emotion and ultimately extract as much beauty and pleasure from life as
possible.
My warm and eclectic style of therapy seeks to deepen the relationship with one’s
authentic self, as well as to others and the surrounding environment. To meet the
needs of each, unique individual, I offer many methods and techniques to manage
the stressors and symptoms of modernity and assist clients in achieving rich and
meaningful lives.

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Peter Gevisser was born and raised in Johannesburg, South Africa. He graduated from Brown University with a BA in English and American Civilization in 1994. He then moved to London where he trained as an actor, and had been working professionally as such, in London and the USA, until he enrolled at Antioch University, where he graduated with a Masters in Clinical Psychology last April. He recently completed his training as an Imago relationship therapist and is under supervision with Dr. DeMarco as a final step towards becoming a licensed marriage and family therapist in New York.
The focus of his work draws from these diverse disciplines.

Couples and Relationships

Peter is a trained Imago couples therapist. He works directly with couples to help them listen to each other. While this may sound elementary and self-evident, very often, couples experience difficulty because they’ve lost the ability to communicate effectively with each other. This means developing skills to listen without becoming reactive and defensive, and to talk, without being critical or aggressive. It is through re-finding empathy for one’s partner that this may be achieved. Peter will help you to develop these skills in a safe, non judgmental atmosphere. His work has shown that, in the ability to work through obstacles, couples emerge stronger, and with a new, deeper appreciation for each other. The romance that they find is often deeper and stronger than the original burst of first meeting and falling in love.
(The seminal book on Imago Therapy is written by it’s founder, Harville Hendrix: “Getting the Love you Want”.)

Creativity

As a result of his appreciation for the power of creativity, he works with patients to rekindle lost passions. Often clients struggling with addiction - be it sex, drugs, or alcohol - benefit from substituting these “negative” addictions for positive rituals that delve into creativity. Peter will work with the client to explore what creativity means to each individual client.

He also works with students and professionals who may be experiencing “blocks”, encouraging them to reignite their passions.

Grief and Bereavement

Peter works with clients to move through grief and bereavement, using creative forces. Creativity may involve writing, painting, drawing, music, cooking; or anything else that the client defines as creative. Creativity may also be a simple act of appreciation. Peter will work with clients to find ways in which they may honor their lost loved ones through creativity. Different cultures use specific rituals to honor their lost loved ones. It is often the case, in the Western World, that rituals have been lost in the rush to “get back on ones’ feet” and “get back to work”. While these mantras have their value, it is equally important to balance them with taking the time to honor our lost loved ones. He has a strong belief that one doesn’t “get over” loss, but learns to live with it - and in so doing, one’s life may become richer and deeper for it.

The Safe Space

Freud coined the phrase for psychotherapy as “The Talking Cure”. Hendrix has taken from this and extended the definition to “The Listening Cure”. Therapy is also about what we choose to do. “The Doing Cure”. Peter hopes to provide a safe space wherein which the client feels free to explore, focusing further on what (s)he may “do” to work with these discoveries. Through his extensive training as an actor, Peter is deeply aware of the different messages our bodies convey in space. His hope is that, by creating a safe space for the client inside the therapy room; the world outside, will seem a little less overwhelming and scary.

Original Article

I believe that all therapy must be done in a culturally conscious & sensitive way. I work with clients in a holistic manner that is non-judgmental, compassionate, culturally aware and tailored to the specific needs of each individual client. I believe that good therapy enables us to thrive in the world, not just survive. As a therapist, I am dedicated to creating a safe space where clients feel comfortable to access the strength required to overcome hurdles, transcend boundaries and effect positive personal change.
I have a Masters degree in Psychological Counseling from Columbia University and a Masters degree in Anthropology from the University of Oxford. I am working towards my license as an LMHC and my training has including individual and group counseling that spans behavioral, mood, substance, adjustment, identity and relationship related issues.
At a personal level, I have lived and studied all over the world including India, Australia, UK, Canada and the U.S. and integrate these experiences into my work with clients. Besides my passion for therapy, I love singing, playing the guitar, dancing, yoga, and drawing. I believe that each of us has a creative aspect to ourselves that can be a wonderful source of strength and inspiration that we can draw from at all times, not just in times of crisis. As a therapist I hope to encourage my clients to access their creative selves so that they can be more of who they already are.

Original Article

El modelo ABC es un ejercicio de la terapia REBT. Con este ejercicio uno puede analizar y disputar los pensamientos irracionales con la realidad. También pueden hacen este ejercicio con cualquier situación. El modelo ABC nos guía como ser mas tolerantes y flexible sobre eventos desafortunados.

El primero se llama el “A” y esta parte significa el evento de activación. El evento de activación es la situación que te enoja. Por ejemplo, “yo no pase el examen de matemática”. El “A” es solamente factual… Que fue lo que paso? La segunda parte se llama el “B” y significa creencias sobre la situación… como “yo soy una idiota porque no pase mi examen.” “Yo tenia que pasar el examen con un 100.” Las creencias son las que causan la tercer parte que se llama el “C.” El “C” significa las consecuencias. Las consecuencias se manifiestan en dos maneras, emotivas y de conductas. Las consecuencias emotivas son “me siento deprimida, y estupida”. Las consecuencias conductas son que tal vez uno se esconda, o abusa de un substancia como el alcohol. La parte final, el “D”, significa el debate y disputa donde uno puede analizar las creencias irracionales. Si uno se siente que es una idiota… puede disputar “es verdad que soy una idiota por este evento?”

Okay por favor busca un papel y lápiz y sigan este ejemplo:

A (la activación de el evento): No pase el examen del matemática.

B (creencias): Yo soy una idiota porque no pase mi examen. Mi madre me castigara. Perdere mi beca. Mi vida se acaba.

C (Consecuencias): Emotivo: me siento deprimida, y estupida.
Conductas: me escondo, o bebo mi mamajuana.

D (debate y disputa): Quien dice que yo soy un idiota solo porque no pase un solo examen.
Es de verdad que yo soy completemente estupida por que no pase este examen? (claro que no!)
Lo peor que puede pasar es que mi mama me grite? Es esto el fin del mundo?
Estoy seguro que perdere me beca? Puedo leer el futuro? Aunque pierda me beca, esto me matara?
E (efecto): Si tu crees que las cosas que te dices a ti mismo en el punto D, entonces no tiene sentido deprimirte y sentirte estupida. Si tu crees en estas cosas, tiene mas sentido sentirte irritable, decepionado, triste. Pero con estas emociones, puedes hacer algo mas productivo como estudiar, pedir ayuda, etc.

Para concluir, el modelo ABC es una manera bastante útil para analizar nuestro pensamientos y cambiar nuestras conductas.

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Original Article

We do not accept insurance for therapy-  And here is why.

People don’t generally expect therapy when making out their budgets.  They really don’t expect it when they have insurance coverage that covers medically necessary treatments.  For these treatments to be covered, the clinician must give you a medical diagnosis, which becomes part of an elaborate trail of paperwork (sometimes electronic) that includes any number of people involved in getting your insurance claim from the clinician to the insurance panel, and getting payment from the insurance panel back to the clinician.   While the system has its flaws that are too many to discuss here, it does generally work if you are lucky enough to have great medical coverage, and have something like strep throat.  It does not, however, have your best interest in mind when working with mental health clinicians like marriage and family therapists and mental health counselors.

I am an outspoken critic of the book that we in the mental health profession are expected to use in our work with clients called the DSM (The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) put out every ten or fifteen years by the American Psychiatric Association.  (Interestingly, there are no statistics included in this book, despite its name.)  In it, are lists of what psychiatrists have voted to define (based on research?) as mental illness.  Nevermind that psychiatrists are medical doctors trained in biological brain diseases, not usually  psychotherapy, sexuality, couples therapy, substance abuse, eating disorders, autism, or any other topic included in the wide field of psychology.  Yet the entire field of psychology is forced to use codes from this book, to diagnose you with a mental illness, if you want to have insurance pay for part of your therapy, even if your therapy does not include treatment by a psychiatrist/physician.

Let me make it a little more clear to you by giving some real life examples.  You know all those gay kids killing themselves because they are getting bullied?  Well, if they come to therapy, I have to give them a diagnosis, probably related to depression or something called “adjustment disorder”.  So it’s not the little shits DOING the bullying that get the diagnosis, but the victim. Interested in couples therapy because your partner cheats on you?  Are you the one that calls the office to set up the sessions?  Then you are called “the identified patient” (or IP), and the “medical chart” at your therapist’s office will be opened in your name.  If you are the one with the insurance, then you are the one who will receive the mental illness diagnosis.

If you are hearing voices, or know someone who is severely depressed and fear for your safety or theirs, by all means, call 911 or check our your nearest psychiatric emergency room.  But by and large, these aren’t the folks who are going to therapy, many of whom just have problems coping with all the obstacles that come with being alive, and it is unfair for everyone involved to make them fit into a psychiatric/medical model.

Instead of using insurance for therapy, my solution has been to offer psychotherapy/counseling/coaching (whatever you want to call it) on a sliding scale.  This means that I accept a range up to what I consider to be ethically acceptable as the maximum fee (in NYC, my fee is $150, and if you do a bit of searching, you’ll find that some other professionals charge rates that are much higher).   Your rate is calculated based on the number of people in your household and your annual income, and starts at $40.

This is my calling, and my passion, and if I could do it for free, I would.  But I went to school for a long time to be able to practice my profession, and have to pay my bills, too. ( I do not want to be part of a system that emphasizes illness and not wellness, and truth be told, the amount that I would get paid from any given insurance company is not worth the hassle, anyway.) So to make my living (and pay back those student loans), I offer realistic therapy with results.  You track your progress.  You see if you are getting better at dealing with what you came in to deal with.  If you’re not getting better, why would you stay with the same therapist for years on end?  If your therapist can’t tell you exactly their plan for helping you, what are you paying them for?  If you ARE getting better, then why do you need to stay in therapy forever?  I believe so much in what I do, I have developed my practice as a training practice to offer therapists-in-training experience in offering effective, ethical, solution-focused and evidence -based counseling.  (And since 2005 have supervised no less than 30 new therapists, many of whom are now my competition.)

Chances are if you are reading this, you are not mentally ill.  Maybe no one has ever told you that before, even.  I do hope this series sheds some light on the subject of using insurance coverage for therapy, and I hope that you will want to read more about my practice and how we can help you be who you are.

Keep reading at:

http://www.mytherapistnewyork.info

http://www.mytherapist.info

http://www.twitter.com/drdemarco

http://www.youtube.com/mytherapistnewyork

Original Article

We could learn our lesson from the world-renowned runners of the ancient Mexican people, the Tarahumara, and abandon our running shoes. According to 2010, the word’s leading athletic supplier, Nike, Inc., which is the name of the Greek goddess of victory, brought in a total net capital of $20.86 billion. This makes Nike, Inc., the largest international seller of athletic gear. Unlike the Tarahumara people who ran barefoot, modernized societies spend millions of dollars on marketing and professional athlete sponsorships to advertise how some new feature of extra air or cushion is actually better for our bodies as it provides more sustainability, comfort, and capability of achieving a faster pace. After you first strike up conversation with a professional runner, it is no surprise you may hear about some injury that inhibited them from participating in a national team qualification or event. Nevertheless, whether it is a long-distance or sprint professional runner, one may notice they rarely wear chunky running shoes. The enjoyable, simple act of running has been tainted because modern cultures are now conditioned to have extra support presented by luxury athletic goods that companies like Nike, Adidas, and New Balance sell, even putting aside the fact that these companies have supposedly also been associated with producing their merchandise in sweatshops.

Like happiness, I feel like running is a state of mind that you can control - you can turn it on and off.  Before February 2010, the longest run I completed was easily under 5 miles, however, now I consider myself an avid runner. Also like happiness, I believe the desire to run, or work out in general, and achieving that euphoric state, is something very unique that many of us take for granted until we can’t do it/don’t have it anymore. It took some work, but now I run as much as I can, and I learned that I will only achieve long-term success with running by ditching my running shoes and going barefoot.

You can do the same with happiness.  If you were once happy, and now you’re not, it may feel like you’ll never get there again.  So we try years of luxury psychotherapy or chemicals (prescribed or not).  Our style of therapy is meant to show you how to ditch the modern trappings and help you get back to the emotional basics.  Want to know more?  Check us out! http://www.mytherapistnewyork.info and http://www.mytherapist.info or http://www.youtbe.com/mytherapistnewyork for some video entries about cognitive behavioral therapy and rational emotive behavior therapy.

For more about running barefoot (and for original photos) check out: http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/05/the-roving-runner-goes-barefoot/  and http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/21/phys-ed-is-running-barefoot-better-for-you/

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You don’t have to be married. That’s right folks, a licensed marriage and family therapist doesn’t think you have to be married. Truth is, I tend to use my other titles more than my marriage and family therapist titles, because of what that license implies. I am not pro-marriage. I am not pro-family. Now that doesn’t mean I am anti-marriage and family, so don’t misconstrue. But I do think that we get too hung up on these two particular relationship structures sometimes, especially when they imply that heterosexual, western, judeo-christian, monogamous relationships are the only relationships that exist on the planet. What perpetuates this? We the people.

I’m not particularly political. I do, however, find it so interesting on a sociological level, this whole recent exposé from a Republican candidate’s ex-wife in the media right now that includes headlines like “Open marriages and dirty tricks emerge in Republican race” and “Gingrich angrily denies he sought open marriage”. Wow. Maybe I’m way too idealistic, but really? Open marriage accusations from an angry ex threaten to ruin someone’s political career? And the indignation that follows? It boggles the mind!

Life is full of contradictions in the US today. We have (supposedly) a free market. We don’t like monopolies where we don’t have a choice- but you’d better buy American. We have (supposedly) free elections so we can decide who we want to have in our government, and they don’t get to stay there forever, only for a certain amount of time- but you get Democrat or Republican. We have (supposedly) freedom of religion, although as someone who is non-religious, I feel the pressure daily to have some sort of religion, and in this country, it had better be a form of Judaism or Christianity, but nothing too out there like Mormonism, because that’s just culty. (How many times have we heard about Mitt Romney defending his religious beliefs, when the only difference between religion and cult is who has better PR!?) So we live in a place where we feel like we can pick and choose most things, except when it comes to relationships. The choice there seems to be you can have one sexually faithful, government-sponsored, pre-defined relationship template, or not.

Do we need to talk about how many of our political representatives/morally superior folks have made headlines because of alleged sex scandals? Oh, let’s do it in alphabetical order- Barr, Cain, Chenoweth, Cleaveland, Clinton, Condit, Craig, Duvall, Edwards, Eisenhower, Benjamin Franklin, Ganley, Gibbons (not the primate, as they are usually monogamous), Gingrich (aside from open marriage, he also allegedly had an affair), Giuliani, Haley, Hart, Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, Johnson, Kennedy, Kilpatrick, Lee, Livingston, Massa (gay tickler), McCain, McGreevey (gay American), Newsom, Roosevelt, Spitzer, Schwarzenegger, Viers, Villaraigosa, Vitter, Weiner - okay, I’m bored of making this list already- check this Wiki link and the sources.

Maybe Newt was angry because he tried for an open marriage and didn’t get one. But to be angry of being “accused” of wanting an open marriage, as if it were something so morally reprehensible? Yet another example of how difficult it is for us to Be who we Are. And since we walk around feeling bad about who we are, we elect people who we think will make us better. The problem is that these people aren’t better. These people make laws that seem to come from some moral high ground, but then are unable to abide by the laws that they create. Marriage good- oops, my intern gave me a beej. Gay bad- oops, I hired a male prostitute. The thing is, the laws and politics that they initially created are still there. We’re still debating gay rights because of homophobic folks who later are involved in gay sex scandals. We still think marriage is between one man and one woman, when the people telling us this can’t make that work in their own lives, and are involved in extra-marital affairs. So we forget about the scandals, and keep trying to make something work when the something is just a meme, an idea based on nothing. One of the hot topics this season? Gay marriage! Great! another step towards equality and freedom, yes, and a whole other segment of the population that will feel pressure to conform, and a whole other group of people to feel bad about themselves when they realize they can’t/don’t want to.

If you’re not inclined to be monogamous, don’t be. Make your own way. It might not be helpful for you to choose a political party to represent you that doesn’t accept your relationship choices, but ultimately, having freely chosen your relationship style, one of many relationship styles on the planet (read the book “Sex At Dawn by Ryan and Jetha), you’ll fare much better psychologically and emotionally in the long run. A relationship built on honesty, working through difficult conversations, mutual trust, respect, empathy, and unconditional acceptance sounds much more appealing and healthy than accepting the seemingly unnatural (if you read any research on sexual fidelity whatsoever) hetero-normative, government-sponsored (reread above about government sex scandals) marriages.

Regardless of my license title, my whole style of therapy is summed up in the statement “Be who you are”. There is a lot of pressure to be what other people want you to be - “straight-acting”, sexually faithful to one person, married, in a monogamous relationship, rich, famous, educated, a homeowner, materialistic, religious, a parent, etc. The secret here is this is also the list of things people are struggling against when they come to therapy. When you realize that these states of being are not necessarily innate, that they are socially constructed and forced upon you, that is where you start to have some choice. Do you really want these things, or are you telling yourself that you absolutely have to have/be these things? This is where you start to have some freedom. That is where much of the depression, anxiety, paranoia, anger, (all normal feelings for humans) start to subside, and you’re on the right track to Be Who You Are.

Dr. Michael DeMarco is a therapist (licensed mental health counselor, licensed marriage and family therapist, and board certified clinical sexologist) and clinical supervisor in private practice in the hotbed of sex scandals, New York City. For more information, and other articles by Dr. DeMarco, visit http://www.mytherapistnewyork.info and/or http://www.mytherapist.info or follow him on http://youtube.com/mytherapistnewyork and http://www.twitter.com/drdemarco

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Dr. DeMarco supervises graduate student therapists as well as post-graduates working towards licensure in New York as Mental Health Counselors or Marriage and Family Therapists.

We offer support in your journey towards emotional freedom and happiness - something that comes from you, not from us. We’re not selling diagnoses and pills. We’re not selling answers to all of your problems. We are here to teach you the tools to create your own psychological, emotional and philosophical way in the world- your life, for you, by you. One size does not fit all. Life can be painful, but only you can decide if you want to make yourself suffer.

In our work with clients, we are interested less in a label or pill to give you so we can bill your insurance,rather we hope to help identify how people, as Albert Ellis called it, self-disturb. That is, we’re not big fans of putting more labels out there in the universe, but help people learn to, well, “undisturb” themselves.

Sound like a long process you can’t afford? This isn’t 12-Step. Leave your DSM and expectations at home.

Interested in sessions with us? We’ll teach you how to measure your progress in therapy as well as how to be your own therapist. If it’s not effective for you, we’ll happily refer you elsewhere.

There are individuals, groups, corporations- whole systems of people designed to try to make you feel anxious, scared, depressed, helpless, and hopeless. Whether they are successful or not is up to you.

Want to know more? Schedule now!

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