Affirmative Therapy Collective

Affirmative Therapy Collective Affirmative, responsive psychotherapy and counseling for adults and teens, conveniently located in NYC's west village.

Taking the opportunity to reflect on your relationship with alcohol in the New Year? You’re not alone! Dry January is a ...
01/14/2026

Taking the opportunity to reflect on your relationship with alcohol in the New Year? You’re not alone! Dry January is a growing trend. But is it right for you? Join Sophie Talmadge Silleck, LMSW in exploring the pros and cons of experimenting with Dry January.

If you’re wondering what it would be like not to drink, give it a try and see what it’s like. Maybe it’s not a new you, just a new experience!

Here’s to a year of honoring yourself, listening to your body, and feeling confident in your choices.

Happy New Year!

Interested in exploring your relationship with alcohol, January or not? Sophie is taking new clients! Find out more about how to work with her at the 🔗 in our bio 💌
🏷️

Taking the opportunity to reflect on your relationship with alcohol in the New Year? You’re not alone! Dry January is a ...
01/14/2026

Taking the opportunity to reflect on your relationship with alcohol in the New Year? You’re not alone! Dry January is a growing trend. But is it right for you? Join Sophie Talmadge Silleck, LMSW (https://affirmativetherapycollective.com/who-we-are/sophie-talmadge-silleck/) in exploring the pros and cons of experimenting with Dry January.

If you’re wondering what it would be like not to drink, give it a try and see what it’s like. Maybe it’s not a new you, just a new experience!

Here’s to a year of honoring yourself, listening to your body, and feeling confident in your choices.

Happy New Year!

Interested in exploring your relationship with alcohol, January or not? Sophie is taking new clients! Find out more about how to work with her at the 🔗 in our bio 💌
🏷️

There was a stretch in 2021 where it felt like I (Lauren) read this excerpt from Anaïs Nin’s “Journal of a Wife” from 19...
12/31/2025

There was a stretch in 2021 where it felt like I (Lauren) read this excerpt from Anaïs Nin’s “Journal of a Wife” from 1924 to patients on a near weekly basis.

It is truly ever green, and a good reminder for NYE as we revisit our goals and intentions from the year, and the year to come. New Year’s Eve can really push so many of our buttons around how we measure up. To ourselves. To where we thought we’d be. To others and the lives we imagine they have from afar.

Tonight, and this week as folks inevitably share their highlight reels, remember that growth doesn’t happen on a timeline. And certainly not in some perfect, linear, march forward. In one experience we CAN indeed gain leaps and bounds after a long time of protected stillness, as Anaïs wrote. Stillness can even be the goal, particularly in recovery from burnout, trauma, or disordered eating.

It is okay to be wherever you are at this 2026 turning.

And if in your reflections on the year reveal that you need help locating stillness or getting back at it, we’re here to help.

Wishing all a happy and gentle 2026 from all of us at ATC.

*
*
*
*
*

Navigating shopping during the holiday season while struggling with impulse control can be a special challenge. Sophie T...
12/22/2025

Navigating shopping during the holiday season while struggling with impulse control can be a special challenge. Sophie Talmadge Silleck, LMSW offers her tips for avoiding impulsive shopping decisions, including avoiding all-or-nothing thinking, leaning into mindfulness, and focusing on the loved ones around you instead of the gift-giving portion of the season.

Remember, though the holiday season may be one ruled by materialism, the real gift is the time we spend with people we love. At the end of the day, gifts are truly the least important part of the holiday season. Be with your people 🫂

Looking for therapeutic support around impulsivity, shopping or otherwise? Sophie has openings! Find out more about how to work with her at the 🔗 in our bio 💌
🏷️

Recovery reminder from ATC associate Sophie Talmadge Silleck, LMSW!Tonight we celebrate the third night of Hanukkah, the...
12/17/2025

Recovery reminder from ATC associate Sophie Talmadge Silleck, LMSW!

Tonight we celebrate the third night of Hanukkah, the Jewish Festival of Lights.

Hanukkah is a special holiday for the Jewish community that reminds us to stand up for ourselves, celebrate the light in the dark, and find joy where we can.

Hanukkah is also a time that we celebrate by eating fried foods, to honor the miracle of oil lasting eight whole nights when it should have only lasted one. But fried foods have gotten a bad reputation within our culture, and this can make Hanukkah celebrations complicated.

Instead of focusing on spending time with loved ones, the holiday becomes more about the stress and anxiety of navigating a complex relationship with food.

If you are someone who struggles with fried foods, let this be your permission to enjoy the holiday the way everyone else does, diet culture be damned. Stand up to diet culture and eat the food you want to eat!  Enjoy the holiday and the delicious food that goes with it, without guilt or judgment.

Looking for therapeutic support around food and body image? Curious about working with a therapist who shares your cultural background? Sophie has openings! Find out more about how to work with her at the 🔗 in our bio 💌
🏷️

December 2025: AIDS/HIV Awareness Month 🌈Helmed this week by Lee Warwick, LMSW, the team at ATC wanted to take a moment ...
12/09/2025

December 2025: AIDS/HIV Awareness Month 🌈

Helmed this week by Lee Warwick, LMSW, the team at ATC wanted to take a moment to reflect on the cultural legacy of HIV/AIDS and honor those impacted by the AIDS epidemic.

The q***r community as it currently stands is missing an entire swath of a generation of beautiful, unique individuals. These q***r community members—people who would likely have survived if the US federal government had appropriately responded to a clear and persistent health crisis—never had the chance to become community elders. They never had the opportunity to pass along their knowledge; to live their own whole, magical lives; to love; to see how the world has changed, and how it hasn’t. And our current q***r collective has suffered from the lack of role models, the anxiety around pleasure, and

While those who survived continue their legacy, the empty places where those who we lost were meant to be are still felt to this day.

In honor of their memory, we as a collective q***r community must continue to destigmatize HIV/AIDS, push for further advancements in treatment and management, and continue to keep one another safe through safe s*x practices.
🏷️ ***rcouple ***rcommunity ***rhistory ***rtherapist *xtherapy *xtherapist ***rlove ***rhealing

No matter what or how you celebrate during the holiday season, alcohol and drinking culture tend to be part of the equat...
11/24/2025

No matter what or how you celebrate during the holiday season, alcohol and drinking culture tend to be part of the equation. This can be stressful for those who are sober, sober-curious, or just trying to cut back.

But it has also become much more socially acceptable to be sober, or to at least be courteous of sober individuals’ needs. You don’t have to spend the holiday season isolated, or feeling like the dud at the party. With a little prep and maybe some planning, you can have an amazing holiday season, whether you’re drinking alcohol or not. ATC associate, Sophie Talmadge Silleck, LMSW, walks us through her tips.

Looking for support around substance misuse and/or your relationship with alcohol? Sophie is taking new clients! Head to the 🔗 in bio or to our website to learn more about working with Sophie.
🏷️

Navigating the holidays in general is already a complicated experience for many. Toxic family dynamics, pressure around ...
11/17/2025

Navigating the holidays in general is already a complicated experience for many. Toxic family dynamics, pressure around appearance and food, and spending time with people you may not otherwise get along with are just some of the few challenges that most of us experience around the holiday season.

As a polyamorous person, this time of year can be even more complex, even if it is also joyful. Though it can mean there are a plethora of loved ones’ gatherings to attend, which can be fun and exciting, it can also mean that you’re pulled in many different directions at once. You also run the risk of spending the holiday with folks who don’t understand or approve of your relationship structure.

This season, remember that your relationships are valid and your boundaries matter, no matter how they look. You are allowed to choose the gatherings that feel uplifting, and to give yourself permission to honor the connections that keep you grounded. Your choices may ultimately upset some people or not meet certain people’s expectations, but you are allowed to decide how you want to spend your time because your love deserves room to thrive, and you deserve to spend the holidays in whatever way feels right for you.

Communicate as openly as you can with your loved ones. Honor your values, needs, and preferences, and check with all parties to ensure everyone is getting out of the season what they are looking for.

Interested in exploring relationship dynamics in therapy? Lee is currently taking new patients! Head to the 🔗 in the bio to find out more about how to work with them.
🏷️ ***rtherapist

November is here and so is daylight savings, which means we are creeping up on SAD season. Though we might be tempted to...
11/07/2025

November is here and so is daylight savings, which means we are creeping up on SAD season. Though we might be tempted to wait until the SADs hit to do anything about it, it is actually much more effective to start planning for the SAD months now.

This can look many different ways, and may just mean that you need to pay closer attention to your bio needs and other self care tasks. But for some of us, we may need more targeted support, potentially including medication, supplements, or other tools such as SAD lamps to get us through the SAD period.

If you’re feeling anxious about getting through SAD season without mental health support, be sure to head to the 🔗 in the bio to find out more about how to work with a therapist on our team ❤️‍🩹
***rtherapist

A Halloween message from associate therapist Sophie Talmadge Silleck, LMSW!With Halloween being a time for costumes and ...
10/31/2025

A Halloween message from associate therapist Sophie Talmadge Silleck, LMSW!

With Halloween being a time for costumes and candy, we can easily get wrapped up in body image and negative self talk. The precedent for certain kinds of costumes in particular, especially for women and femme presenting folks, can contribute to feeling a little too focused on our bodies, how they look, and what it means to be on display for others. Lingerie and animal ears, anyone?

But if we can put the societal pressures and expectations around costumes to the side, we can remember that Halloween is also about having fun with friends, swapping candy, watching scary movies, having jammie parties, and carving pumpkins. When we’re preoccupied with our bodies and how they look in our costume, it’s hard to be present for these special moments. Instead of focusing on how everyone else is dressing, focus on your comfort and being in the moment with people who bring you joy.

Happy Halloween!
🏷️ ***rtherapist

So often we come into therapy because we think we are broken toys in need of fixing. We have struggled and suffered and ...
10/24/2025

So often we come into therapy because we think we are broken toys in need of fixing. We have struggled and suffered and when we have reached out for support, so many have told us that our suffering is our own fault. The conclusion most of us come to, understandably, is that if it is our fault, it is also within our power to “fix.”

The truth, however, is so much more complicated. When we utilize an approach of “fixing”—hyper focusing on coping skills and bandaid solutions without getting at the root of the feeling of not enough-ness—we buy into the idea that we are, in fact, broken. When we shift to an affirmative approach, our goal changes to trying to better understand how the beliefs and narratives we have internalized around our experiences can create this feeling of perceived brokenness, and how we can challenge these narratives and build an identity and understanding of self that is guided by our own intuition, desires, needs, traumas, and lived experience.

It is through this affirmative approach that we can create a life we want to live, and learn how to care for ourselves within distress in a way that is supportive rather than self-shaming.

Shame keeps us stuck; acceptance and curiosity allow us to grow.

Interested in working with one of our therapists? Head to the 🔗 in the bio to find out more ❤️‍🩹
🏷️

Address

80 University Place
New York, NY
10003

Opening Hours

Monday 9am - 9pm
Tuesday 9am - 9pm
Wednesday 9am - 9pm
Thursday 9am - 9pm
Friday 9am - 5pm
Saturday 9am - 5pm

Telephone

+16464701163

Website

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Affirmative Therapy Collective posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Contact The Practice

Send a message to Affirmative Therapy Collective:

Shortcuts

Featured

Share

Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share on LinkedIn
Share on Pinterest Share on Reddit Share via Email
Share on WhatsApp Share on Instagram Share on Telegram

Category