Justena Kavanagh
LCSW-R, QS, SiFi
Justena graduated magna cum laude from Dartmouth College where she was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. She has been a Professor of Psychology at NYU’s graduate school and at a university in Madrid, Spain, where she also had a private practice. Before becoming a therapist, she consulted for Fortune 100 companies and was a journalist for ABC News.
With over 20 years of clinical experience, Justena is constantly honing her craft through a variety of experiential modalities and trainings. Realizing that society’s markers of success often don’t bring inner contentment, she helps people find and pursue their true desires and dreams.
A native New Yorker, Justena has lived, worked, and studied throughout the United States and Europe. She loves surfing, kitesurfing, wakeboarding, and skiing.
Therapeutic Approach
Seeing how much more successful, connected, and fulfilled people are when they look inside, Justena pursued a career in mental health. She founded NYC Counseling to assemble an exceptional group of practitioners to help many more people reach their potential.
Justena believes that therapy is the most effective way to create profound, lasting change and a life richer in meaning, well-being, and satisfaction. She helps people identify and transcend the behaviors and barriers that hold them back, and empower their journey of self-discovery and fulfillment.
She speaks French, German, and Spanish.
Specialties
- Certified in Brainspotting and RLT (Terry Real), Esther Perel trained
- Couples, Relationship, and Marital Challenges including:
– Emotional, Financial, and other Narcissistic Abuse
– Premarital, Couples on the Brink, Separation, and Divorce
– Co-parenting through Marriage, Separation, and Divorce
– Betrayal trauma, infidelity, partners of sex addicts - High-Conflict, Coercive Control, and Parental Sabotage
- High Net Worth, Celebrities, and other High Achievers, their Partners and Adult Children
- Infertility, New Moms, Perinatal, Working Moms, Single Parents
- Partners and Adult Children of Alcoholics, Narcissists, and Borderlines
- Post-traumatic Growth including Navigating Health Challenges
- Substance Use and Misuse, Behavioral Compulsivity, and Recovery