Most of the people I work with have spent years becoming very good at their work. Good at their jobs, their relationships, their families. Good at managing themselves, other people, the distance between who they are and who they think they're supposed to be.

What they're less practiced at is slowing down enough to ask whether any of it is actually working for them. Whether the life they've built reflects what they want or what they've learned would make them worth something to the people who mattered early on.

That's not a flaw. It's a very human thing to do. And it's exactly the kind of thing therapy is for.

Here's what I also know: their lives aren't stopping while we do this work. They're still running the company, managing the family, navigating a brain that works differently than most systems were built for. Therapy that only looks backward isn't enough. We work on what's most pressing right now and what's been creating it — at the same time.

I'm Roberta Gelfand, a Licensed Clinical Social Worker in New Jersey, New York, and Connecticut. I hold specialty certifications in ADHD (ADHD-CCSP), autism spectrum disorders (ASDCS), integrative mental health (CIMHP), and dialectical behavior therapy (C-DBT). My work draws from IFS, CBT, ACT, DBT skills, somatic and nervous-system-informed approaches, psychodynamic insight, mindfulness, and polyvagal theory. I work especially well with adults navigating complex trauma, attachment wounds, and ADHD — particularly those carrying the weight of family expectations, cultural pressures, or years of not quite feeling like enough.

That's not a list of buzzwords. Each one does something different. Some build the skills and structure someone needs right now. Some help make sense of what shaped the patterns in the first place. Some work with what the body is holding that thinking alone can't reach. I use what the person and the moment actually need.

I don't push people to perform better. I help them get curious about what's been driving the performance and what they actually want when they stop long enough to ask. That means not bulldozing the parts of them that have worked hard to get them here. Those parts did their job. My job is to help them rest, so the rest of the person has more room.

I came to this work long before I had language for it. I've always been drawn to understanding why people do what they do — especially when their behavior doesn't match who they want to be. Over time, I understood how much of that gap comes from adaptation: the roles we learn to survive, the expectations we absorb before we're old enough to question them, the ways we get very good at functioning while carrying a lot more than anyone can see. I know something about that from the inside. I'm a wife, a parent, and someone who has had to examine my own tendencies toward over-responsibility and perfectionism — not as a credential, but because it's shaped how I recognize those patterns in others without judgment. What keeps me in this work is watching people reclaim parts of themselves they thought were gone. That doesn't get old.

I work private pay only. That means our work is between us, no prior authorizations, no outside limits on where it goes or how long it takes. If you're using insurance, you can find me on Headway.

If any of this sounds familiar, I'd like to talk.