Trauma, Relationship and Identity Therapy for Women and Gender Diverse Clients in New York
You know you want your life to feel different, but you aren't always sure how to get there.
You keep ending up in relationships that leave you questioning yourself. You replay conversations and wonder what you should have said, whether you made the situation worse, or why you reacted the way you did. When things get emotional, you can feel everything at once or shut down completely. You may spend so much time trying to understand other people that you've lost touch with what you actually think, feel, or need.
Then life changes. A breakup, loss, difficult relationship, move, new stage of life, or other major transition can bring feelings to the surface that you've been avoiding for a long time. You start realizing that the relationship problems, anxiety, self doubt, difficulty trusting people, and feeling disconnected from yourself might not be separate issues at all.
For other clients, the questions are more personal. You've spent years trying to fit into expectations around your gender, sexuality, family, or relationships, and you're finally in a place where you can ask yourself what you actually want. You may feel out of place, unsure of yourself, or tired of hiding parts of who you are.
Marcella works with women and gender diverse clients who want to understand where these patterns come from, feel more secure in who they are, and build healthier relationships with themselves and the people around them.
When You Keep Ending Up In Relationships That Don't Feel Good
You know a relationship isn't making you happy, but setting a boundary or walking away can feel much harder than it sounds. You keep trying to understand the other person's behavior, make excuses for what happened, or focus on what you could have done differently. You tell yourself that things will get better, give another chance, and then find yourself anxious, disconnected, on edge, or questioning yourself all over again.
Family experiences and past relationships can shape what feels normal to you. If you grew up around criticism, control, emotional neglect, conflict, or abuse, you may have learned to keep the peace, stay alert to other people's moods, avoid difficult conversations, or put your own needs aside. Those responses can continue showing up long after the original situation is over, especially when a current relationship brings up feelings that remind you of what you've experienced before.
Marcella helps you look at those patterns without making you the problem. Together, you can start understanding why certain relationships affect you so strongly, what happens in your body and emotions when you feel threatened or rejected, and what you actually need in order to feel safe and connected in a relationship.
When You're Having A Hard Time Figuring Out Who You Are
There is a difference between knowing what other people expect from you and knowing what you want for yourself.
You may have gotten very good at adjusting to other people's needs, following expectations, or keeping certain parts of yourself private. Over time, that can leave you wondering what is actually yours and what you've learned to do because it kept other people comfortable. It can be especially difficult when you're questioning your gender identity or sexual orientation and don't feel like you have many places where you can talk honestly about it.
Marcella works with transgender, nonbinary, gender nonconforming, and other LGBTQIA+ clients who are exploring these questions. You don't need to have the right label or know exactly how you identify before starting therapy. You can talk about gender, sexuality, family, relationships, self confidence, culture, and the experiences that have shaped the way you see yourself.
The work is about giving you room to tell your story and look at the beliefs you've developed about yourself along the way. From there, you can begin figuring out which parts still feel true, which parts came from other people's expectations, and what it would look like to live in a way that feels more like you.
Your Reactions Didn't Come Out Of Nowhere
You know that feeling when your body reacts before you've even had time to think about what is happening? Your chest gets tight, your stomach drops, you feel tense or restless, or suddenly you want to get away from the conversation. Other times, you go completely numb and have a hard time figuring out what you're feeling at all.
These responses can develop when you've spent a long time dealing with situations where you didn't feel safe, especially when those experiences involved family, relationships, or interpersonal abuse. Staying alert, avoiding conflict, keeping other people happy, isolating yourself, or disconnecting from your feelings can become ways of getting through difficult experiences.
That doesn't mean there's something wrong with you. It means your responses have a history.
Marcella's trauma informed work focuses on helping you understand those responses, put words to what you're experiencing, and connect your reactions to the experiences that shaped them. The more you understand what is happening, the easier it becomes to recognize what you need in the moment instead of only realizing afterward that you shut down, pulled away, or ignored your own feelings.
When Loss Changes More Than You Expected
Grief isn't always about losing a person. A relationship ending, a major life change, losing a version of yourself, or realizing that life isn't going the way you expected can bring up its own kind of grief.
You can know that a change was necessary and still feel sad about it. You can be relieved that a relationship ended and still miss the person. You can be excited about a new chapter and still feel unsettled by everything you had to leave behind.
Marcella is currently expanding her training in grief work and brings that perspective into conversations around loss, change, and the transitions that can affect how you see yourself and your relationships. Therapy can give you room to make sense of what you're feeling while also figuring out what comes next, rather than feeling like you have to move on before you've had a chance to process what changed.
What Therapy With Marcella Can Actually Look Like
Marcella takes a trauma informed, person centered approach and combines narrative and somatic therapy with an understanding of the social and cultural factors that shape people's experiences. Her approach is flexible because the same strategy doesn't make sense for every person or every situation.
Narrative therapy gives you a chance to examine the story you've developed about yourself. Maybe you've spent years believing you're difficult, incapable, too sensitive, or not good enough. Instead of treating those beliefs as facts, therapy can help you look at where they came from, how they have affected your choices and relationships, and whether they still fit the person you are today.
Somatic work brings attention to what happens in your body when emotions come up. You can learn to notice tension, numbness, restlessness, changes in breathing, or the urge to escape when a difficult subject comes up. Those physical responses can give you information about what you're experiencing, especially when it is difficult to put the feeling into words.
Marcella also brings a feminist and culturally aware perspective to therapy. Gender, culture, family expectations, power, relationships, and the way society treats different identities can all affect how you see yourself and how safe you feel being yourself. Those factors are part of the story too, and therapy can make room for them rather than treating your experiences as if they happened in isolation.
What Starts To Feel Different
The changes often show up in situations that used to leave you feeling completely drained. You have a difficult conversation and don't spend the rest of the night replaying every sentence. You notice yourself becoming overwhelmed and can recognize what is happening before you shut down. You realize you're about to say yes to something you don't want to do and give yourself permission to pause before agreeing.
Over time, you can become more comfortable trusting your own judgment. Instead of assuming you're the problem every time someone is upset with you, you can look at what actually happened. Instead of isolating when you're struggling, you can reach out. Instead of making decisions based entirely on fear of rejection, conflict, or disappointing someone, you can think about what you genuinely want.
Relationships can change as your relationship with yourself changes. You can become more aware of what feels healthy, communicate your needs more clearly, recognize when you're falling into an old pattern, and make different choices when you notice it happening.
For clients exploring gender identity or sexual orientation, the shift can involve feeling more comfortable with who you are and less pressure to hide, explain, or apologize for parts of yourself. You can begin making choices that feel more aligned with the life you want rather than the life other people expected you to have.
Marcella Works With People Who Are Dealing With:
• Relationship problems and unhealthy relationship patterns
• Attachment concerns and difficulty trusting others• Interpersonal and relational trauma
• Childhood and generational trauma
• Experiences of abuse or controlling relationships
• Hypervigilance and feeling constantly on edge
• Emotional overwhelm or shutting down
• Overthinking and rumination
• Avoidance, isolation, and emotional detachment
• People pleasing and difficulty setting boundaries
• Low self worth and self confidence
• Grief, loss, and major life changes
• Breakups and relationship transitions
• Gender identity exploration
• Sexual orientation and LGBTQIA+ concerns
Why Marcella?
Marcella is a New York State Limited Permit Mental Health Counselor with a master's degree in Mental Health and Wellness from New York University. She earned her Bachelor of Science in Biology and Psychology from Siena College.
Her clinical perspective is also shaped by experiences outside of the traditional therapy setting. Marcella spent four years working in a Women's Center during college, supporting women through personal and interpersonal concerns. She later worked with women and children at a domestic violence shelter, providing both outreach and residential support. She is also continuing her professional training in grief work, expanding her ability to support clients dealing with loss and the changes that can follow it.
Those experiences have given Marcella a close look at how relationships, trauma, safety, identity, grief, and self worth can affect one another. Her work is not about looking at one symptom and trying to make it disappear. It is about understanding the larger story and helping you figure out what needs to change.
Marcella's style is warm, curious, and collaborative. She works well with clients who are willing to be honest about what's happening, reflect on their experiences, and try different ways of approaching the things that aren't working. She is also comfortable asking the questions that can be difficult to answer when you've spent a long time avoiding a feeling, relationship, memory, or part of yourself.
Questions You Might Have Before Starting Therapy
I've already tried therapy and still feel like I'm dealing with the same things. What would we actually do differently?
It can be frustrating to feel like you've talked about the problem without understanding why it keeps showing up. Marcella looks at the connection between your past experiences, relationships, emotional responses, and the way you see yourself. Sessions can include conversation and reflection along with somatic exercises, mindfulness practices, and other techniques you can continue using between sessions.
Do I have to talk about everything that happened to me?
No. You decide what you're ready to talk about. Therapy can begin with what is happening in your life right now and gradually move toward experiences from the past when they become relevant to the work.
I know I avoid things, but facing them feels impossible.
Avoidance often develops for a reason. Marcella can help you understand what you're protecting yourself from, notice what happens when difficult feelings come up, and build your ability to stay present with those feelings without immediately shutting down, isolating, or escaping.
I'm questioning my gender or sexuality, but I don't even know what I identify as yet. Can we talk about that?
Yes. You don't need to have a label picked out or know exactly what you want to call yourself. Therapy can give you room to explore gender, sexuality, relationships, family experiences, culture, and what feels authentic to you.
What does somatic therapy actually mean?
Somatic work means paying attention to what happens in your body as you experience emotions. Your shoulders might tighten during conflict, your heart might race when you feel threatened, or you might become numb when a conversation gets difficult. Learning to notice those responses can help you better understand what you're experiencing and what you need in those moments.
Can I talk about grief if I'm not sure whether what I'm experiencing even counts as grief?
Absolutely. Loss can take many forms. A breakup, change in a relationship, major transition, loss of a role or identity, or the end of a chapter can all bring up grief. You don't need to have a specific kind of loss to have a conversation about how a change is affecting you.
What if I don't really know what I need from therapy?
Start with what is bothering you. The relationship that keeps hurting. The breakup you can't stop thinking about. The anxiety you can't turn off. The feeling that you don't know yourself anymore. The questions you're having about your identity. You and Marcella can figure out the direction of the work together.
You Don't Have To Keep Living By An Old Version Of Yourself
You learned ways to get through difficult experiences. Maybe that meant keeping everyone happy, staying quiet, avoiding conflict, disconnecting from your feelings, making yourself smaller, or pretending you were fine when you weren't.
Those responses can make sense when you understand what you were dealing with at the time. Your life now can be different.
Therapy with Marcella can help you understand your past without letting it define you, build a stronger sense of who you are, and develop healthier ways of handling relationships, emotions, loss, and difficult experiences. Over time, that can mean trusting yourself more, speaking up when you need to, setting boundaries without immediately second guessing yourself, and feeling more comfortable being the person you actually are.
Marcella provides virtual therapy in New York for women and gender diverse clients.
Call 315 401 0569 to schedule a free 15 minute consultation and see if Marcella may be a good fit for you.