Gateway Interviews: New York Psychotherapy

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Gateway Interviews recently interviewed Dr. Jordan Conrad, the founder and clinical director of Madison Park Psychotherapy — an innovative psychotherapy practice in the heart of Manhattan. They wanted to know what makes Madison Park Psychotherapy so unique, how to find a good therapist in NYC, and whether specialized therapies - therapy for anxiety, for example, or trauma therapy - can be helpful to people without those specific conditions. Below is the reporter’s Q&A with Dr. Conrad.

First, I want to thank you for taking the time to speak with us. There are a lot of places to go if you are looking for psychotherapy in New York City – what makes Madison Park Psychotherapy different?

You’re right — finding a therapist in New York City is not exactly difficult, but finding one you really like can be. Part of that is because you need to get along with your therapist, but part of that is because it can be hard to find a therapist that you feel you can trust with your most personal life struggles. At Madison Park Psychotherapy all of our therapists have additional post-graduate training beyond their clinical education in a specialized area or modality. So if you are looking for couples therapy, we have therapists trained in Imago therapy and the Gottman Method; if you are interested in therapy for anxiety, we have cognitive behavioral therapists, psychodynamic psychotherapists, and therapists trained in internal family systems (IFS); if you need a therapist for children or a therapist for teenagers, we have therapists who have worked in schools and are trained in play therapy. That is really unusual for most therapy practices.

Wow. OK, so Madison Park Psychotherapy places a huge emphasis on training and continuing education for its therapists.

Absolutely we do, but that also allows us to provide affordable psychotherapy in New York, where the costs of mental health care can be prohibitive. Because all our therapists — not just one or two of them — have post-graduate training, we are capable of providing a sliding scale without compromising quality at all.

Can that kind of training backfire? Can you have too much training?

I suppose you could! I’m more worried about how many therapists haven’t had enough training. Listen, the thing is that being trained in therapy for anxiety, or trauma therapy, or therapy for depression, or as a couples therapist in NYC, is helpful even to patients who don’t have acute anxiety, trauma, depression, or are in a relationship. The reality is that we all feel anxious at times and having a therapist who has a specialized understanding of what that is like and how to treat it can help someone even if that isn’t precisely what they want to work on.

You also mentioned therapy with kids and adolescents earlier. As a parent, one of the hardest things about finding a good therapist has been that there is just so many people to manage. Teachers and coaches and acting classes and doctors – it seems to never end!

It can sound silly to people who don’t have kids, but honestly that is a big obstacle for most people. Adding one more thing to your day and one more person to your child’s routine is tough. Because we really believe in psychotherapy and the effect that early interventions can have on anxiety and depression in kids and teens, we try to minimize the stress that therapy can cause for parents. Madison Park Psychotherapy offers complete wrap-around services for your child – if your child is seeing a pediatrician or speech-language pathologist, if they are struggling in school or on the field, we will reach out to their doctor, teacher, guidance counselor, and coach so you don’t have to run back-and-forth.

Ugh, that would be such a huge time-save! I saw on your website that you also do maternity therapy and therapy for new moms — I haven’t heard much about that.

That is exactly why we do it! The story we often hear is that the path to parenthood is fun and easy and that becoming a new parent is the most fulfilling thing you can do. For many people that’s true, but for many others that story leaves out their struggles to conceive, uncertainties about what kind of parent they will be, feelings of anxiety and depression. Worse yet, a lot of this burden falls squarely on the shoulders of women and, because the story is that that they should simply be overcome with happiness, new mothers often feel like they have no one to talk to about their fears. Therapy for new moms is designed to help women navigate the journey from trying to conceive to postpartum. We even have therapy support groups several times a year for new and expectant mothers to meet each other and process feelings together.

You seem to do a lot of research — how does that fit into being a psychotherapist?

The two are pretty closely connected, actually. Again, in my clinical experience I have found that reading articles and staying on top of recent developments in the field is helpful to treating patients. My patients demand high quality therapy and at Madison Park Psychotherapy, we provide it: expert therapy in New York City. For me, that is synonymous with engaging with the literature and contributing to it. I have tried to make my work accessible on my website [] but we also have a where we discuss the same issues for a broader audience.

What made you decide to start Madison Park Psychotherapy?

I have been a psychotherapist in New York City for a long time now, and it has felt like the same problems have hung around. There are a lot of really talented therapists, but people are struggling to find them. The reality is that it is just hard to know what to look for in a therapist and whether they are right for you. By creating a boutique practice of expert psychotherapists committed to cultivating their craft, I hope to make finding a therapist in NYC a bit easier.