Daniel Lehrman, MA, NCPsyA, LP, is a psychotherapist and licensed psychoanalyst in private practice in Manhattan and Brooklyn whose specialties include life transitions, relationship difficulties, depression, anxiety, family of origin issues, trauma, and couples therapy. He works with adults and has a special interest in therapy for young adults in their 20s.
Daniel’s style as a psychotherapist is active and collaborative. Clients say he brings both seriousness and humor to his work, and describe him as insightful and kind. He has an ability to build rapport with people from a wide range of life experiences and backgrounds.
New York City Psychotherapist
Here in New York, opportunity and exhilaration abound. So do countless clamoring demands on our competencies, our attention, our self-esteem, equilibrium, relationships, money, endurance—the list goes on. Many people find psychotherapy an invaluable help in their efforts to thrive and reach their goals in the demanding environment of New York. For some, psychotherapy is aimed at solving particular problems; for some, it is about bringing healing to past injuries; for some, it is about more fully developing their innate potentials of all kinds. Often these goals overlap or morph one into another. I bring more than 20 years of experience to my work as a psychotherapist in both short- and longer-term therapy with a wide diversity of clients.
Psychotherapy
People seek the help of a psychotherapist for many reasons. Clients come to my office with problems such as:
❖ Conflict in relationships with family, friends, work associates
❖ Low motivation and feelings of depression
❖ Anxiety that disturbs functioning in daily life or specific situations
❖ Difficulty figuring out a life path; lack of direction or meaning
❖ Imbalance between work and family
❖ Sexual problems; sexual orientation
❖ Life transitions such as job, career, or retirement
❖ Inability to create or maintain an intimate relationship
❖ Trauma, recent or in the past, whether acute or cumulative
❖ Anger and rage
❖ Spiritual crisis
❖ Marital challenges and parenting issues
❖ Divorce
❖ Obsessive and compulsive behavior
❖ Psychosomatic symptoms
❖ Abuse, emotional and physical
❖ Grief, loss, and bereavement
❖ Suicidal feelings and thoughts
❖ Psychiatric and neurobiological conditions such as mood disorders
Some people wonder how talking with a psychotherapist can help. One thing to know is that we don’t just talk in the everyday conversational sense. Sure, there is some of this, but if I had to sum up in a phrase what I am trying to do, it is to help clients experience themselves differently. Therefore, we are using words in order to create an experience. This can take many forms. Sometimes it involves feeling emotions that have long been packed up and exiled. Sometimes it is a flash of insight that knits together aspects of one’s life that have long felt splintered and disconnected, thus bringing meaning and order where there had been chaos. Sometimes it means feeling feelings that are long familiar, but relating to them differently, so that one is less reactive to them. Sometimes it is a matter of feeling glimmers of possibility where previously all doors seemed shut and stuck. Sometimes it means experiencing things we are accustomed to, but with the crucial difference that this time we are not so alone with it all, a difference that in itself can be transformative. Often a client will say, “It’s crazy to hear myself say that aloud,” when they realize something about themselves that seems obviously true now that it has been spoken, but was entirely hidden before that moment. These and other ways of experiencing oneself differently happen in a relationship of warmth and trust between client and psychotherapist because this is the first ingredient of transformative psychotherapy.
I see my role as a psychotherapist not as telling you what to do or solving your problems for you; I see it rather as guiding you in a process of uncovering your own capacities—for emotional expression and balance, for self-understanding, for healthy decision-making, and for the courage to act. 
Benefits of Therapy
My goal is for clients to get more than they came for. They may come for the relief of certain symptoms or to solve a particular problem. But in the process of working on these things, new paths of self-discovery can open up. Perhaps the best description of therapy’s benefits is that people grow more mature through the process.
You can learn to be more honest with yourself. You see that old habits and patterns are not the only options. You become less defensive. You get better at solving your own problems. You learn to manage your emotions instead of taking them out on others or being overwhelmed by them inside. You become more empathic with others. You enhance your capacity for intimacy. You take a good look at your own values and see how much your life is in or out of sync with them.
New feelings of freedom can open up. Self-acceptance grows. And these changes allow for new possibilities in relationships, in work settings, in solitude, and in a capacity for pleasure.
How can you benefit from psychotherapy? The benefits are as varied as the people who experience them. Check out some clients' own answers to this question on the Benefits of Therapy page of this website.
Daniel Lehrman, MA, NCPsyA, LP is a Psychotherapist in New York City, Manhattan, Brooklyn.