Dr. Annette Borenstein

I’ve been a psychologist for more than 15 years and have worked in a wide range of settings, including hospitals, residential programs, outpatient clinics, and schools. I work with teens and adults dealing with anxiety, depression, trauma, relationship issues, and major life transitions. I’ve also worked with entrepreneurs and professionals in technology and finance who may look highly successful on the outside but are dealing with stress, burnout, or feeling stuck underneath it.

I tend to be warm and thoughtful, but I’m also pretty direct. I don’t think therapy should feel like you’re talking while someone just nods at you. I want to understand how you got where you are, what keeps repeating, and what may need to change. I also bring some humor into the room when it feels right. Therapy can deal with serious things without every minute of it having to feel heavy.

My approach is integrative, which really means I don’t try to fit every person into one particular type of therapy. I draw most heavily from psychodynamic therapy, Internal Family Systems, mindfulness, and relational approaches, while also using CBT and DBT strategies when they are useful.

I’m interested in both what is happening in your life now and what may be underneath it. That can include earlier experiences, relationships, family patterns, culture, stress, and even the way emotional experiences show up physically. We may look at why certain patterns keep appearing, but we’ll also talk about what you can actually do differently in your life today.

The first session is really a chance for me to understand what brought you in and for you to get a sense of what it feels like to talk with me.

I want therapy to help you understand yourself better, but insight by itself is not always enough. The goal is for that understanding to eventually translate into real changes in how you feel, relate to other people, make decisions, and manage the demands of your life.