Individual Therapy

You are good at what you do. From the outside, the career works, the achievements are real, and most people would trade places with you in a heartbeat. And yet something underneath does not match the success. A harsh inner voice that no win ever quiets. A pattern in your closest relationships that keeps repeating no matter who you are with. A way of operating at work that drives results and quietly costs you. You have probably managed around it for years, because managing around things is what high performers do.

I work with accomplished people who are ready to stop managing around it and actually change it.

I am Travis Atkinson, a licensed therapist (LCSW, LICSW) in private practice. For more than three decades, individual therapy has been my life’s work, and I have spent that time learning the most powerful methods directly from the people who created them. What I offer the executives and high performers I work with is not a longer version of the talk therapy you may have tried before. It is targeted, sophisticated work aimed at the patterns that are holding back your self-esteem, your relationships, and the way you lead.

Why insight has not been enough

You are self-aware. You can already explain your own history, name your patterns, and see exactly where they came from. That is precisely the frustration: you understand it all and it still runs the show. This is not a failure of intelligence or effort. It is how the mind is built.

The patterns that govern how you see yourself, who you choose, and how you react under pressure were laid down early, beneath language, in emotion and in the body. They do not yield to more analysis. To change them, the work has to reach the same depth at which they formed. That is how I practice, and it is why the change my clients make tends to hold under real-world pressure.

How I work, and who taught me

I am not loyal to a single method. I am loyal to what moves you forward. Over thirty years I have had the rare good fortune to learn three of the most effective approaches in the field directly from the people who originated them, and I bring them together around one question: what is actually keeping you stuck, and how do we move it.

Schema therapy, for the patterns that run your life

I began training in schema therapy in 1994 and worked closely with its founder, Dr. Jeffrey Young, for the better part of two decades. Schema therapy targets the deep emotional themes, the schemas, that took root early and now quietly organize your adult life: the relentless standards that masquerade as ambition, the fear of being found out that no achievement resolves, the way you keep recreating the same dynamic with partners, colleagues, or the people who report to you. We trace each pattern to where it began, understand why it once made sense, and build something sturdier in its place. It is direct, structured, and it reaches the root rather than chasing the symptom.

Mindsight, for changing the brain itself

I completed advanced-level training in Mindsight, the approach developed by Dr. Daniel Siegel, grounded in the science of how relationships and experience literally shape the brain. Mindsight is the trainable ability to see your own mind clearly and to regulate it on purpose rather than be hijacked by it. For a high performer, this is the difference between reacting to a difficult board member, a hard quarter, or a charged conversation at home and responding with steadiness. It is also the reason I can tell you with confidence that the patterns holding you back are not fixed: the brain stays capable of change across your entire life, and the right work rewires it.

Emotionally focused therapy, for your closest relationships

I worked closely with Dr. Sue Johnson, who created emotionally focused therapy, from 2006 until her passing in 2024, and together we made the first EFT training film for gay and lesbian couples. EFT rests on a simple, humbling truth: we are wired for connection, and a great deal of our distress is the fear of losing it. In individual work, EFT helps you turn toward your own emotions instead of being run by them, so the feelings that once flooded you become information you can use. For people whose work demands constant composure, this is often the missing piece: it lets you bring your full self to the people who matter most, rather than only your performance.

Where it is useful, I also draw on the practical tools of cognitive behavioral therapy, grounded in the work of Dr. Aaron Beck, woven into the deeper work so that what shifts in a session shows up in your week.

What changes

The executives and high-performing individuals I work with come in wanting three things, and over time they get them. Their self-esteem stops depending on the next result and starts to rest on something steadier. Their relationships, at home and at work, grow less reactive and more genuinely connected. And their work dynamics shift, because a leader who is no longer driven by an old fear makes clearer decisions, holds difficult conversations better, and stops paying the hidden tax that unexamined patterns quietly levy on a career.

What the work looks like

We begin with a focused assessment of five sessions. Together we map the patterns at play and trace where they come from, and in the fifth session we step back to share honest feedback and set clear goals for the work ahead. From there, every session is built around you. There is no standard program and no script. It is one senior clinician giving your inner life the kind of sustained, undivided attention it rarely gets anywhere else.

This is individual therapy for people who expect depth, discretion, and the full attention of one experienced clinician rather than a clinic. Sessions are conducted online and held in confidence, available to clients located in New York, Florida, and Vermont, including accomplished New Yorkers who would rather invest that hour in real change than in crosstown traffic.

Individual sessions with Travis start at $350. I am out of network and provide superbills you can submit for possible reimbursement. If you are ready to stop managing around the pattern and finally change it, I would be glad to help you get there.