Tribeca Therapy’s New Park Slope, Brooklyn Office Is The Next Step In Our Larger Plan
We recently announced the opening of our second office in Park Slope, Brooklyn. Park Slope has been my residence since I moved there after years in Tribeca where my connection to Lower Manhattan led me to open Tribeca Therapy in 2009.
In early 2020, I began offering therapy sessions for the first time from an office in my Brooklyn home in what we hoped would be the beginning of a second office for the practice. Little did any of us know that by mid-March with the COVID-19 quarantine that all of my sessions would be from that office (just not as anticipated). More than simply an association with the neighborhood as one of the two homes I’ve had in NYC, our new office in Park Slope, Brooklyn is an important piece of our larger plan as a growing group practice.
We’ve Built A Different Kind Of Group Practice
Anyone who has ever searched for a therapist (or watched television) is aware that most therapists are a solo operation. Group practices are rare and most often look like clinics with a reputation for serving poor and working-class patients in a more institutional setting. The expectation with group practices is that there is a good deal of staff turnover and the therapy is more cookie-cutter.
At Tribeca Therapy, we’ve built something different. We have therapists who have been with our team for 9 years and counting. Therapists work with us because they believe in the value of our work. They understand the practice of therapy as one of continual improvement and self-reflection. They also relish the opportunity to pass their skills along to more junior therapists and even interns. Our investment in our therapists has always been long-term and we offer our therapists what they could never get in a solo practice, which they, in turn, give to our patients.
Our Team Approach Means We Have More Expertise And Experience Than Any One Therapist
Beyond the chance to work with therapists who are invested in constant self-improvement is the synergy offered by a group practice when looking for help with different life challenges. Our team approach means we have broader expertise than any one therapist could have, with a depth of experience in relationships, sex, parenting, education, career advice, divorce, and on and on.
Because we are established, we also have a tremendous network of complementary professionals. If you need something even loosely related to mental health that is outside of our expertise, chances are we know and have an in with someone who does.
So How Does Our Brooklyn Office Fit In?: By Broadening Our Reach
A Brooklyn office not only gives us the opportunity to continue to grow our staff, but it’s a chance to reach a broader number of people and new kinds of people. Brooklyn isn’t necessarily more diverse than Lower Manhattan per se (plus we’ve worked with plenty of Brooklyn patients in our Tribeca offices). But it brings a different kind of diversity.
For instance, Park Slope is home to families and offers an opportunity for us to work with teens and our family therapy offerings. In Tribeca, we work with plenty of families, but the work is dominated by couples or single professionals who have prioritized different things than families who live in Park Slope.
Our Park Slope, Brooklyn Office Is Also Meaningful For Our Long-term Goal Of Expanding Accessibility
Park Slope is also a meaningful location in terms of our long-term plan to expand accessibility. We recognize that there are individuals and families in the neighborhood who are looking for top-quality therapy who can afford to pay for a very seasoned, high skilled therapist. There is also a need in Brooklyn more broadly for those who cannot.
We believe that the problem in access to mental health isn’t one that’s fundamentally about quantity. Mediocre therapists are fairly easy to educate and locate in communities that need them. Great therapy, however, is another story.
It’s hard to train great therapists. Great therapy isn’t merely an execution of a set of skills, but a process that requires mastery, one in which the primary tool is the therapist’s self as a living, breathing, complicated human. Our mission is not to increase the number of therapists in communities that need them, but to increase the quality of therapy, which is part of the work we hope to expand in our new Park Slope office.
