You’ve spent so much of your life feeling different—like you don’t quite belong, no matter how hard you try

Whether it’s your appearance, your sensitivity, or the way your mind works, you quietly cary around the weight of feeling misunderstood

You have noticed your anxiety increase overtime, your reflection in the mirror has become more triggering and you’re feeling stuck on how to start feeling better

You are in the right place.

Welcome to Authentically You Therapy! Finding a therapist who is a good fit for you is an essential first step, so we are so glad you are here. At Authentically You Therapy, we are committed to providing therapy from a social justice lense. Even though therapy is individual work, we believe it is crucial to acknowledge the systems that make it so much harder for people to exist as their authentic self.

While we support our clients with more general mental health concerns such as life transitions, relationships, depression and self-esteem, we specialize in the following areas:

  • Anxiety & Obsessive-Compulsive related disorders: Including GAD, social anxiety, OCD, and Body Focused Repetitive Behaviors (Trichtotillomania and Dermatillomania)

  • Body Image Issues and Physical Differences: Those who have experienced any degree of body image injury, including those with physical differences (such as hair loss, facial differences, limb differences etc).

  • Size Inclusive Eating Disorder Therapy: For those struggling with anything along the spectrum of dieting, disordered eating or a clinical eating disorder (anorexia, atypical anorexia, bulimia, ARFID, orthorexia and everything in between). We know eating disorders do not have a “look” and those in all body sizes deserve competent eating disorder treatment.

  • Body Positive & Neuro-Affirming care: No matter what you’re seeking support with, we believe that all bodies and all brains are inherently good and don’t need to be “fixed”

My Specialties

I am a relational therapist meaning that I do not show up as a “blank slate” and believe at the core of all successful treatment is a strong therapeutic relationship.

That means you’ll see my humor, my authenticity, and my sincere commitment to your growth. We’ll experience the “Aha!” clarity, the “oh wow, that finally makes sense” moments and every shade of being a human in between

I also believe everyone is unique and deserves a unique treatment plan to match. My approach is integrative to account for the different needs of each client. In addition to my relational style, I draw from many evidence-based modalities depending on each person’s needs:

  • CBT & DBT: Skills to help with emotion regulation, flexible thinking, behavior change and symptom management

  • ERP: Exposure and Response Prevention is a behavioral based treatment and is a frontline treatment for OCD

  • CBT-E: CBT-E is used for the treatment of eating disorders. It involves tackling both the behavioral (restriction, binging etc.) and cognitive (body image, distortions etc.) aspects of an eating disorder

  • ComB: The comprehensive behavioral approach is used to help manage BFRBs (such as dermatillomania and trichotillomania) through increased awareness, understanding triggers and identifying interventions to reduce picking or pulling

  • Mirror-exposure therapy: A type of therapy that supports reduction in body preoccupation through body-neutrality practices

  • Psychodynamic therapy: A more reflective type of work that explores earlier life experiences and their connection to current life patterns and symptoms

  • Mindfulness & Self-compassion practices: Increasing one’s ability to live in the present and develop a kinder self-narrative

My therapy approach

Meet your therapist

Hi! My name is Alison and I am so glad you found your way here. You likely already learned about my therapeutic style and values above, so here I am going to share my passion for becoming a therapist and a bit about me as a human outside the therapy room.

The reason I am so passionate about supporting folks who feel different is because I was always the kid who felt and looked different

I started losing my hair at age 3 and have been completely bald since age 6 due to an autoimmune condition called Alopecia Areata. Now, if that was not enough to make me different than my peers, I was also the kid who was getting pulled into separate classes for my learning disabilities. I knew I had to work 10x harder than some of my peers to get the grades I was capable of (insert the development of perfectionism) AND I felt I had to work hard to be viewed as more than my baldness. Not to mention, I also started competitive gymnastics at a young age which at one point led me to being homeschooled to train 30+ hours a week.

All that to say, in almost every aspect of my life, I never felt like I “fit in” or had a “normal” path

As I got older, I started noticing a few things. Such as, there were not many therapists who were visibly different. This made me feeI could not trust someone to truly understand my experience and I knew others who were different likely felt similar. It was from that point that I knew I wanted to help fill that gap.

Now for some fun stuff! I am a cat lover and my cat, Finn, regularly joins therapy sessions. He likes to include his opinion or just hang around for moral support. I am a bit of a reality TV enthusiast and welcome conversations about love island, dancing with the stars or whatever you may be into (dancing with the stars is my personal favorite)! I believe a lot of healing can happen in the therapy space when authenticity is modeled and fully embraced — I look forward to creating a safe space to help you step into your authenticity!

p.s if you have hair loss and are looking for resources beyond therapy or you don’t live in New York —

If you’re interested in my hair loss supports, you can visit my separate website here:
Aid by Ali

Contact Alison

Featured in

FAQs

  • The first step of body image therapy together will include determining your goals. From there, we will create a customized treatment plan. This plan may include things such as…

    • Mirror exposure therapy to promote body neutrality and decreased body thoughts

    • Identifying body checking or body avoidance behaviors that perpetuate the cycle of negative body image

    • Interventions to reduce body checking and avoidance behaviors

    • Process and reflection of your body story and the factors that influenced your body image throughout your life

    • Developing a kinder self narrative that decreases preoccupation with your body overtime

  • While there is no specific cure to trichotillomania or dermatillomania, there are strategies that help manage symptoms. I will help you find strategies that work for you or direct you towards medication if we decide it is necessary.

  • The first step is always an intake session which I will gather a lot of history. From there, we will determine your goals and likely implement ERP and mindfulness interventions in your treatment plan.

    OCD treatment often involves exposures that help us confront obsessions without engaging in compulsions. We will always move at your own pace!