Addison Fay

I'm Addison Fay, a Licensed Professional Counselor in Virginia and a Licensed Mental Health Counselor in New York. I received my Master's in Clinical Mental Health Counseling from the University of the Cumberlands. Before private practice, my background was a mix of outpatient therapy, crisis assessment, and training — the kind of work that teaches you to stay steady under pressure and sit with intensity instead of rushing past it or shying away. These days I focus on alcohol and substance use, ADHD, anxiety, relationships, and issues specific to men. Most of my clients are adults in early-to-middle adulthood, plus some older teens. That range of experience, from crisis work to steady outpatient care, is part of what shaped the therapist I am now. Someone who can hold a hard moment without flinching from it, but who's just as interested in the slower, ongoing work of figuring out a life.

I work from an existential lens, which means I'm more curious about what your experience actually means to you than whether it fits a diagnosis. A label can be useful, but it can also detract from personalized experiences and struggles with life events or symptoms. I want to understand what you are going through specifically, and how it effects you. In treatment I take a harm reduction approach. This means we start where you are and work towards where you want to be without judgment or punishment for setbacks or slipups. This fits naturally with how I think about therapy overall: allowing space for someone to be honest about where they are, and where they want to go. The existential question of what this means for the life you're building sits alongside the practical work of CBT, helping you work through the specific thoughts or patterns that keep showing up along the way. In sessions I'm warm and direct. Sessions tend to be more free-flowing than step-by-step, and honest, unjudged conversation about where this stand and the discrepancy between where you want to be. I'll ask real questions, push back when it's useful, and stay with whatever's actually going on for you. Focused, but flexible about how we arrive at the solutions.

Your first session is mostly about getting oriented to me, to how I work, and to what you're hoping to get out of this. We'll talk through what's bringing you in, and I'll likely ask more than I answer at first so I can truly understand where you are coming from and where you want to go. I'll ask about relevant background too; history, what you've tried before, what's worked and what hasn't. It's really just the start of a real conversation, and it's completely fine if it comes out messy rather than organized, since most people's lives don't fit neatly into a timeline.

By the end, you'll likely have a good sense of where things stand, and I'll probably share some early thoughts on what I'm noticing or where we might focus. This is just the beginning, and we'll find our rhythm together as we go.