About Liana
While completing my bachelor's degree in psychology at Stony Brook University, I interned as an AIDS Peer Educator and an Academic Peer Advisor. I then earned a masters degree in clinical social work from New York University. My graduate field training took place at Bailey Holt House where I worked with adults with HIV, and at the League Treatment Center where I provided play therapy to preschool-aged children with emotional and behavioral difficulties.
After graduate school I worked at Fountain House, a psychiatric rehabilitation center in Manhattan, with adults with severe and persistent mental illness including personality disorders and schizophrenia. I then moved to London, England where I worked for the National Health Service (NHS) as a Child and Adolescent Mental Health Practitioner. While there I provided assessments, psychotherapy and play therapy to children and adolescents from birth to age 18 with a range of issues from autism spectrum disorders, ADHD, and oppositional defiant disorder to eating disorders, emerging psychosis, OCD, anxiety and depression. I had a private practice in Brooklyn, New York for over ten years and relocated my practice to Vermont in 2021. I now offer in-person therapy for Vermonters, and remote therapy for New Yorkers. I have had the pleasure of forming meaningful relationships with children, watching them grow over the years, and becoming part of their early childhood experiences. I have helped children and their parents with issues of separation anxiety, sibling rivalry, sleep disturbances, toilet training, and oppositional behavior. I have supported children with difficult transitions such as changing schools, birth of siblings, moving, and medical procedures, and I have collaborated with other professionals such as special education teachers, speech therapists, occupational therapists and physical therapists. This experience has enhanced my understanding of the needs and pressures of children and parents in this community. In 2017 I completed an Advanced Certificate in Play Therapy at Brooklyn College. I was an Adjunct Lecturer in the Play Therapy Project at Brooklyn College and am recognized as a Registered Play Therapist-Supervisor by the Association for Play Therapy. I provide supervision to licensed mental health professionals working towards becoming Registered Play Therapists. |