Lauryn Cagle

I work with people who have spent a long time feeling not-quite-understood — by past therapists, by systems, or by the people closest to them. That includes queer, trans, and gender-diverse clients, neurodivergent and chronically ill or disabled clients, people healing from religious trauma or cult involvement, creatives, and people carrying complex or overlapping diagnoses.

If you have felt dismissed or too complicated for the rooms you have been in, that is not a flaw in you. It usually means the fit was wrong.

I am a nonbinary, neurodivergent, chronically ill and disabled therapist. I name that because therapy never happens in a vacuum. Bodies, money, access, family, culture, faith, gender, and grief all come into the room whether or not we invite them. I would rather we work with all of it than around it.

I am warm and honest at the same time. I will not ask you to pretend things are fine. I also will not rush you past the parts of your story that needed someone to slow down.

I hold an Ed.M and M.A. in Mental Health Counseling from Columbia University, Teachers College, and I am a Licensed Mental Health Counselor in New York. I see individuals and couples, online across the state.

My work is integrative and socially informed. I draw from several approaches depending on who you are and what you need, rather than fitting you to one method. Some of that is relational and depth-oriented — looking at the patterns underneath what keeps repeating. Some of it is practical, present-tense, and about getting through the week.

Capacity, pacing, and consent shape everything. If your energy fluctuates, if symptoms flare, if some weeks are survival weeks, therapy should be able to flex around that instead of asking you to push through. You get to decide what we open and when.

I pay attention to context. Marginalization, chronic illness, inaccessible systems, and isolation genuinely produce distress. Naming that is not an excuse — it is accurate, and it tends to loosen a lot of the self-blame people arrive carrying.

My style is supportive, transparent, collaborative, and gently challenging. I will tell you what I am thinking and why. Over time, this work tends to look like less isolation, more clarity about your identity and your needs, and a steadier relationship to your own capacity — a life that feels more livable and more your own.

Mostly a conversation. I will ask what brought you here and what you are hoping feels different. You do not need a polished answer. One honest sentence is enough to start.

You are also allowed to leave things out. If something is too much to get into on day one, you can tell me that, and we will come back to it when you want to. Nothing has to be explained in the first hour.

I will ask some practical questions — history, what has and has not helped before, how your weeks actually go, what you need from me to be able to think clearly in session. If there are access needs, sensory preferences, or ways of communicating that work better for you, that is useful information, not an imposition.

We will also talk about how we would work together and how often. By the end, you should have a real sense of whether I feel like the right person. If I am not, I will say so and help you look at other options. Fit matters more than filling a slot.