Psychotherapy or Coaching:
What Will Help You Live Better in New York?
Not sure which path is right for you?
Psychotherapy and coaching are two distinct services, designed for different needs and moments in life.
Psychotherapy is a licensed clinical treatment focused on understanding and relieving emotional pain, recurring inner patterns, and the impact of past experiences. It offers depth-oriented approaches such as psychoanalysis and psychodynamic therapy, which help bring into awareness dynamics that often take shape early in life and continue to influence relationships, choices, and self-perception. Alongside this depth work, psychotherapy can also include practical, evidence-based tools—such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)—that support change in the present by addressing thoughts, behaviors, and emotional regulation. Psychotherapy is a regulated practice governed by professional licensure.
Coaching, by contrast, is not therapy. It is a non-clinical, goal-oriented process focused on the future. Coaching supports adaptation, clarity, and confidence during transitions, professional challenges, or periods of growth. It does not address clinical symptoms or unresolved trauma, but instead helps you mobilize strengths, identify obstacles, and move forward with intention.
Some people choose psychotherapy, others coaching, depending on their needs and on the phase of life they are in. We can explore this together and clarify which approach may be most supportive for you right now.
POTENTIATING CHANGE WITH COGNITIVE BEHAVIORAL THERAPY (CBT)
In my work, I often integrate Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), a practical and evidence-based approach that helps identify and gently challenge limiting thought patterns. CBT offers clear tools for managing anxiety, depression, insomnia, and stress, while supporting greater emotional regulation and resilience. When appropriate, it is woven together with deeper therapeutic work, allowing insight and practical change to unfold side by side.
WHAT IS CBT?
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is a structured and collaborative therapeutic approach that explores the relationship between thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. Together, we learn to recognize habitual thinking patterns that intensify distress — such as catastrophizing, all-or-nothing thinking, or harsh self-criticism — and to gently challenge them with greater realism and flexibility.
Over time, this process helps create space between what happens and how you respond, allowing for clearer thinking, emotional steadiness, and more grounded choices.
HOW CBT WORKS
CBT is an active, goal-oriented process that keeps your lived experience at the center of the work.
Sessions are structured and collaborative: we clarify your goals together and revisit them regularly.
You will learn practical tools and strategies to apply between sessions, so change does not remain confined to the therapy room.
Behavioral activation supports gradual movement beyond avoidance and fear, helping rebuild confidence through small, intentional steps.
Ongoing awareness allows you to notice anxious or negative thoughts as they arise and respond to them with clarity rather than reactivity.
WHAT CBT CAN HELP WITH
CBT is particularly effective for working with:
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Anxiety and panic attacks
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Depression and persistent low mood
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ADHD and difficulties with focus and organization
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Phobias and obsessive patterns
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Avoidance behaviors and maladaptive habits
It is especially useful when emotional distress is intertwined with pressure, performance, perfectionism, or major life transitions.
WHEN CBT IS MOST HELPFUL
CBT is especially helpful when you feel caught in loops of worry, avoidance, self-criticism, or mental exhaustion and want practical tools to regain clarity and momentum. It works well when you are motivated to observe yourself more closely, experiment with change, and take small steps that gradually restore confidence and agency.
Many people choose CBT when they want relief without losing depth — structure without rigidity, and progress without pressure.
Psychoanalysis and Psychodynamic Psychotherapy in New York
Explore emotional depth.
Understand recurring inner patterns.
Grow with greater clarity and self-awareness.
WHY THIS WORK MATTERS
Many of us carry the weight of earlier experiences: childhood memories, inherited wounds, or moments that were never fully processed but continue to shape our emotions and relationships. In therapy, these recurring inner patterns often surface as confusion, fear, shame, emotional numbness, or the repetition of old hurts. Together, we bring these experiences into awareness and begin the work of transforming how your story lives inside you.
WHAT DISTINGUISHES THIS APPROACH
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The relationship as healing
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Psychoanalysis is not about labeling or observing from a distance. It is about healing through a real, attuned relationship. The therapeutic relationship becomes a safe space where hidden emotions can emerge and long-standing knots can begin to loosen.
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Understanding the unconscious
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Much of what guides our choices operates outside of conscious awareness. Making sense of these hidden movements—often shaped across generations—allows you to feel freer, lighter, and more fully seen for who you are.
TWO POSSIBLE PATHS
Psychoanalysis
Three to five sessions per week, often using the couch and free association to explore deep emotional and relational dynamics.
This path is suited for those who feel ready for an intensive, long-term, and profoundly transformative process.
Psychodynamic Psychotherapy
One to two face-to-face sessions per week, flexible yet powerful.
This option offers depth and insight at a more sustainable pace, while still allowing for meaningful internal change.
Both paths place emotional safety and growth at the center of the work, helping you move beyond shame, anxiety, or emotional numbing toward greater vitality, resilience, and connection.
WHAT YOU WILL EXPERIENCE IN THERAPY AND AN INVITATION
A safe, non-judgmental space to explore and understand your emotional world.
Support in recognizing what truly drives your feelings, reactions, and choices.
Tools to observe recurring inner patterns—not to erase them, but to transform them.
If you feel drawn toward greater awareness and lasting change, you are not alone. We can explore this together. You are welcome to book a session, in person or online.
Leide Porcu offers psychoanalysis and psychodynamic psychotherapy in New York City and online
MINDFULNESS AND MEDITATION IN NEW YORK CITY
Experience the benefits of mindfulness and meditation in New York City. Cultivate inner calm, clarity, emotional balance, and resilience amid a demanding urban life. Sessions are available in person and online. Book a session to begin.
WHY MINDFULNESS AND MEDITATION?
I practice mindfulness and meditation personally and often introduce them into therapeutic work, including brief guided meditations ranging from 5 to 20 minutes.
These practices strengthen emotional balance, concentration, and inner wisdom. They support people in working with difficult emotions, reducing anxiety, improving self-regulation, and cultivating resilience.
Mindfulness and meditation help restore the mind–body connection, anchor us in the present moment, and open space for greater compassion, forgiveness, and gratitude in everyday life.
WHAT IS MINDFULNESS?
Mindfulness is the practice of bringing open, flexible awareness to the present moment. It does not require complex rituals and can be practiced in daily life—even while washing dishes, by paying attention to the sound of the water, bodily sensations, and the breath.
Marsha Linehan, the developer of Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), describes mindfulness as conscious attention to three primary channels:
1. the breath,
2. bodily sensations,
3. sounds in the environment.
When practiced together, these channels help awareness become more stable, grounded, and balanced.
WHAT IS MEDITATION?
Meditation has spiritual roots, but its benefits are universal. It does not require specific beliefs or postures—only presence and comfort. It is usually practiced in silence, seated, with a posture that is upright yet relaxed.
Learning to stay still, to let go, and to focus attention has well-documented psychological and physiological benefits, supported by scientific research. Over time, meditation naturally extends beyond formal practice and becomes effective even in situations not typically labeled as “meditation.”
In one lecture, Marsha Linehan shared that singing Shalom is, for her, a powerful form of meditation.
Common forms of meditation include:
· mindfulness meditation (noticing thoughts and letting them pass),
· focused meditation (on the breath, an object, or a mantra),
· mantra meditation (repetition of sounds or words),
· moving meditation (mindful walking, yoga, qigong).
GUIDED PRACTICES
In my work, mindfulness is not abstract. I guide patients through concrete, accessible practices that can be experienced in the room and gradually integrated into daily life.
Some of the practices I offer include:
· Metta (loving-kindness), to cultivate self-compassion and soften harsh inner criticism.
· Body Scan, a progressive awareness of the body that supports relaxation and reconnection with physical experience.
· Open Focus and Open Space practices, designed to reduce stress, increase grounding, and expand attentional flexibility.
These practices are adapted to each person’s needs and pace. They are not about “doing it right,” but about learning how to stay present with oneself in a kinder, more regulated way.
MINDFULNESS IN DAILY LIFE
Mindfulness does not require hours of practice or ideal conditions. Even brief moments of conscious breathing, gentle attention to bodily sensations, or slow, intentional walking can help restore balance and presence.
Over time, these small practices begin to change how you relate to stress, emotions, and uncertainty. Mindfulness and meditation become less about techniques and more about an internal stance—one that supports emotional regulation, resilience, and clarity in everyday life.
Many people come to this work feeling overwhelmed or disconnected. What often emerges is not constant calm, but a steadier inner ground: the ability to pause, respond with more choice, and feel more at home in oneself.
QUALIFICATIONS
Alongside my clinical and psychoanalytic training, I hold a Level I Certification in Ericksonian Hypnosis from the NLP Center of New York. I have also completed numerous short trainings and meditation retreats, and I maintain a long-standing personal practice of meditation, Qi Gong, and yoga.
These experiences inform how I work with mindfulness—not as a technique applied from the outside, but as a lived practice. They support my ability to guide patients into states of relaxation, embodied awareness, and emotional integration, always with clinical care, cultural sensitivity, and respect for individual differences.
LIFE & CULTURAL COACHING IN NEW YORK
A space to pause, reflect, and move forward with intention.
Life and cultural coaching in New York City for people navigating transition, complexity, and cross-cultural demands—personally or professionally.
Offered in person and online.
What Is Life Coaching?
Alongside psychotherapy, I also offer life and cultural coaching. People often ask how coaching differs from therapy, and whether it might be the right fit for them.
Both coaching and psychotherapy support self-understanding, clarity, and change. The difference lies in focus and scope. Coaching is not a clinical treatment: it does not involve diagnosis, does not address mental health conditions such as depression or anxiety, and does not work through unresolved trauma. Coaching is oriented toward the present and the future—toward decision-making, direction, and action.
Life coaching can be especially helpful if you are navigating a transition, feeling stuck, facing high-stakes professional or personal choices, or wanting to move forward with greater confidence and coherence.
How Coaching Works
Coaching is a structured, collaborative conversation. Through focused questions and reflection, we identify what is blocking you, clarify what matters most, and map realistic next steps.
My coaching approach shares affinities with Solution-Focused Brief Therapy, particularly in its emphasis on strengths, resources, and forward momentum, but it remains a distinct process. Coaching is not advice-giving, mentoring, or consulting. I do not tell you what to do. Instead, I help you see more clearly—so that your decisions feel grounded, intentional, and your own.
Very often, the answers are already present. Coaching helps bring them into focus and translate insight into action.
Why Work With Me
While coaching is not psychotherapy, my long clinical experience—as well as my training in psychology, anthropology, and intercultural work—adds depth and nuance to the coaching process.
This is especially valuable for people living or working across cultures, in high-pressure environments, or in leadership roles where identity, power, and visibility intersect. I bring attention to dynamics that are often invisible but deeply influential, while staying fully within the ethical and professional boundaries of coaching.
Confidentiality
Confidentiality is essential to effective coaching. I adhere to the ethical standards of the International Coaching Federation (ICF), ensuring that what you share remains protected, except in situations involving serious risk or legal reporting obligations.
Practical Considerations
Coaching is not covered by health insurance. In some cases, particularly when coaching is related to professional development, it may be tax-deductible. I recommend discussing this with your accountant.
Coaching Credentials
I completed my coaching training at the Symbiosis Coaching Institute, an ICF-accredited program, and hold certifications in Executive Coaching and Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP).
CONTACT ME!
Get in touch, and together we will explore the best way to begin this journey.
+1 212 929 7724