has offered the Long Island community a safe place to heal from psychological and social wounds. Currently we have seven psychotherapists on staff.  If you visit us you may feel our nature of a warm professionalism and down to earth atmosphere.
 
We see social issues just as important as psychological ones so we work hard to prevent and address discrimination of anyone who may be differnt. Differentness in other societies and species is often seen as specialness. So we see our services and clients who are gay, lesbian, bisexual, transsexual and transgender as special.  We offer psycho education to communities who may be ignorant about the special ones in our society.  We are proud and we celebrate their uniqueness and we hope to help eradicate discrimination, hate and oppression.
We are open Monday through Wednesday from 1pm to 9pm and Thursday, Friday from 9am to 8pm and Saturdays from 9am to 5pm. We hope to network with your insurance company so that you can utilize your benefits and ask your company to include our licensed, specialized professionals into their provider bases. Since you are a consumer of insurance benefits it is up to you to contact your insurance company and ask for your needs to be met.  See our Insurance section or contact us at 631.321.7011 for more information.

Information About Our Specializations The following are some of the areas in which we specialize.  Since human beings are complex we do not only treat just one area or a specific problem. Many times issues overlap and blend into other areas of concern.

Trauma

Dealing with Acute and Post Trauma

For over twenty years some of our therapists have dealt with people who have experienced trauma. War veterans, rape survivors, adults and children abused as children, car accident survivors, people who have suffered or are suffering a life threatening illness, holocaust survivors and survivors of terrorism may all experience some of the following: Depression, anxiety, nightmares, recurrent images of the trauma, difficulty integrating the traumatic experince into their reality, numbness, dissociation and fearing the same trauma happening again. Some treatment techniques work better than others in treating trauma. It has been documented and we have found that psychodrama, a form of therapy in which the trauma is recreated in a healthy environment, helps to relieve trauma victims of symptoms. Yoga, meditation and individual and group psychotherapy sessions are also helpful to recovery.



Mental illness

Depression

Depression is a medical and psychological illness that has symptoms of prolonged sadness, difficulties sleeping and/or eating, irritability, withdrawal from pleasurable activities and from people. Depression can cause thoughts of suicide. It affects both men and women and people of all ages. For people who suffer depression the most important aspect of recovery is to accept the illness and allow it to be treated by professionals. Treatment consists of weekly psychotherapy session and anti depressant medication.



Specializations

Social Illness

Thomas Jefferson said in the Declaration of Independence that "all men are created equal." At Heart & Soul we help our clients and community members to advocate for themselves against the social illnesses of discrimination, prejudice, terrorism, racism, poverty, sexual orientation and gender reassignment injustices and prejudice. We believe that social illness affects the psyche just as much as psychological illness. If we all work toward the betterment and health of our society we gain the rewards of less social conflict. It is then that we and our generations to come can truly feel the privledge of a peaceful and free nation.

Counseling and Relationships

Can counseling help my marriage/relationship?

Counseling can help your marriage and/or your relationship. Quite often we are not taught how to have a healthy relationship. If you saw your parents have healthy communication, fair fighting, affection and a close bond chances are you modeled yourself after them. Many others may not have witnessed that healthy partnership as a child. Children learn through modeling and imitation so many times patterns of behaviors are repeated in relationships and brought into the next generation. Counseling can teach you how to effectively communicate, how to empathize and understand your partners needs and feelings. It can also help you identify when you are "transfering" some other issues from your past relationships onto your current one. Once these past issues are processed and worked through you may not transfer onto your partner.



Depression and Anxiety

Why am I depressed and will it ever go away?

You may depressed because of a few reasons. The biomedical reason may be due to a chemical imbalance in your brain that you may have inherited. You may also have unresolved issues of grief, anger and trauma. Depression usually runs in cycles and although it may never go completely away, there are remission and recovery stages. You may be anxious due to a chemical imbalance as well as some unresloved issues. Many times anxiety is the top of a pressure cooker. Underneath there are strong emotions to diffuse. Anxiety can be successfully treated through medication and psychotherapy. It may never go completely away but it can be managed with your help.