Brian Ackerman, LCSW
NYS Lic. No. 098542
I hold a master’s degree in Clinical Social Work from NYU. I identify as a gay/queer man and specialize in psychotherapy relating to sexuality, attachment, and trauma. My training includes affirming care around gender and sexuality, psychoanalytic psychotherapy, Safety and Attachment Focused Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (SAFE EMDR), Emotion Focused Therapy for couples, and I am a fellow in the couple’s therapy program at the Training Institute for Mental Health.
Before becoming a therapist, I served as a lobbyist advocating for sexual and reproductive health for adolescents and young people in countries receiving U.S. foreign aid and later worked in management consulting, publishing, and community mental health. Having worked in larger social justice movements, I see psychotherapy as an integral part of building a more just society, as it supports individuals and relationships in developing the self-understanding and compassion necessary for healing, growth, and change.
In sessions, I see all clients as whole persons – with family, social lives, professional responsibilities and goals, sexual desires, physical needs, spiritual perspectives, and multiple intersecting identities, all of which need airtime in the therapeutic journey. From the first session, I work to build each client relationship on a foundation of warmth, empathy, acceptance, and curiosity to cultivate the safety and trust needed for clients to engage with their emotions, explore their truths, and find meaning in their experiences. I emphasize a psychoanalytic approach to support clients in integrating unconscious needs and motivations into their conscious awareness, ultimately increasing self-compassion, and improving emotional regulation and behavioral decision-making.
I have specialized training and expertise in working with: gender, sexuality, LGBTQIA+ identifying people, poly/non-monogamy, kink, trauma, fetish sexualities, sexual compulsion, sexual inhibitions, solosexuality, sex work, parents and caregivers of LGBTQIA+ individuals, spirituality, online dating/hook-up apps, relationship lifecycle, depression, anxiety, self-esteem, body dysmorphia, aging, assertiveness, political activism, professional development and satisfaction, W/white accountability and antiracist culture, and self-actualization.
Before starting my own practice, I trained at The Gender & Sexuality Therapy Center and Manhattan Therapy Individuals and Couples.