Sostenes Lima

I'm Sostenes Batista Lima, a Licensed therapist trained at Columbia University with over 10 years of experience across community mental health, group practice, and private practice settings. I work with adults navigating trauma, anxiety, depression, people-pleasing, and relationship challenges, including the deep and often invisible wounds left by childhood experiences, intergenerational patterns, and identity struggles.

As a Brazilian American and mixed-race therapist, I bring both personal and clinical understanding of the complexity and diversity of the human experience. My background has shaped a genuine sensitivity to cultural, racial, and identity-related concerns. I am fluent in both English and Portuguese, and I welcome clients from a wide range of backgrounds. My specializations include trauma and PTSD, attachment wounds, psychoanalysis, and EMDR, and I hold licenses in North Carolina, California, and Florida.

My approach is integrative, relational, and depth-oriented, drawing on psychodynamic, psychoanalytic, attachment-based, intergenerational, and trauma-focused frameworks. I also incorporate EMDR, somatic work, IFS, CBT, and ACT as clinically appropriate. Rather than applying a one-size-fits-all method, I tailor our work to what you need most.

In our sessions, we explore both the deep roots of your struggles and how your past relationships and unprocessed experiences have shaped who you are and the patterns that show up in your everyday life. My goal is to help you gain insight, make sense of your history, and develop more authentic and fulfilling ways of living.

Our first session is a space for you to share what brought you to therapy and what you're hoping to change or heal. I'll listen deeply and ask thoughtful questions to help us begin to understand the patterns and experiences shaping your life. You won't be rushed or pushed; the pace is always yours to set.

By the end of our first meeting, you can expect to feel heard, to have a clearer sense of how we might work together, and to leave with an initial direction for our work. My aim is for you to feel safe enough to be honest because that honesty is where real healing begins.