About Me

I am a licensed mental health counselor and tenured professor at Hofstra University. For more than twenty years, I have been doing both: teaching graduate students how to become clinicians, and sitting with clients myself. Each informs the other. My thinking on addiction, adolescent mental health, and substance use policy has been sought by national and regional media, including Newsweek, CNN, the Daily Herald, and Newsday.  At M Kim O’Connor & Associates, most of my work involves adolescents, young adults, and their families. This is a stage of life I find myself drawn back to again and again because what happens here tends to matter for a long time afterward. It is when identity starts to solidify, when mental health struggles often make their first appearance, and when the conditions for addiction, if it is going to develop, are usually being laid. I work with the full range of what young people bring into the room. I also see adults at every stage of life, and I offer consultation sessions for parents concerned about a teenager or young adult and want a clinician’s perspective and guidance. I have worked with LGBTQIA+ individuals throughout my career and bring real familiarity with identity development, and the ways stress from marginalization weaves through mental health across the lifespan.

My Approach 

I draw from psychodynamic therapy, cognitive-behavioral therapy, motivational interviewing, and solution-focused approaches, but I don not think of myself as belonging to any one camp. Every person has a different way of being stuck, and figuring out what that is matters more to me than applying a fixed method. I think the relationship itself is part of what creates change, and I am as attentive to what unfolds between us as I am to any technique or framework. I pay close attention to how culture, family history, and the layers of a person’s identity shape what they bring into treatment, and I work from there.

My Specialties

I see adolescents and young adults dealing with anxiety, depression, ADHD, bipolar disorder, life transitions, and identity questions, and I work with adults on the same territory at later points in life. I also have deep clinical experience in addiction, both assessment and treatment, covering substance use such as alcohol, opioids, and others, and behavioral addictions including gambling, gaming, and pornography use. Adolescence and young adulthood are when addiction most commonly takes hold, and young people already navigating anxiety, ADHD, or depression are more vulnerable than most people realize. That is not a side note for me; it is central to how I think about this age group, whatever brings someone in. For parents who are worried about where their child may be heading, I offer dedicated consultation sessions to help them understand what they are observing and think through how to respond, including a full range of treatment approaches. I have worked with LGBTQIA+ individuals for most of my career, including adolescents sorting out their identity and adults managing the stressors that can come with it.

My Self-Care

When I am not in session or in the classroom, I practice hot yoga, fish for striped bass on the Long Island Sound, and tend my garden.

Photo by Patrick Shaun on Unsplash