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DR. SOPHIA HAERI, PhD
Knowing why is one thing. Changing it is another.
About Me
Something I hear often from the people I work with is some version of this: I understand myself. I've done the reading, the therapy, the work. And I still can't seem to change the things that matter most.
That gap, between knowing and actually feeling different, has been one of the driving questions of my career.
I've spent years trying to understand why insight alone so often isn't enough. Many people can explain their patterns in extraordinary detail and still find themselves caught in them. They know where the anxiety comes from, why certain relationships affect them the way they do, or why they react so strongly in particular situations. The understanding is real. It just hasn't necessarily translated into feeling or responding differently.
That pursuit is what brought me to trauma-informed care, EMDR, somatic work, attachment theory, and the relational approaches that shape how I practice today.
I'm Dr. Sophia Haeri, a licensed clinical psychologist in New York and Connecticut. I work with adults and couples through telehealth throughout both states, as well as with clients in PSYPACT-participating jurisdictions.
Many of the people I work with are thoughtful, capable, and used to functioning well. They may be successful in their work and relationships while privately carrying exhaustion, anxiety, self-doubt, or the sense that they keep getting pulled back into patterns they understand but cannot seem to change.
How I work
My work is integrative because people are complicated, and one framework rarely explains everything. Depending on what is happening, therapy may involve understanding the history behind a pattern, working directly with the nervous system, processing an experience that still feels unresolved, developing concrete ways to respond differently, or paying attention to what is unfolding between us in the room.
Approaches may include EMDR and Accelerated Resolution Therapy for trauma processing, Somatic Experiencing and other body-based work, psychodynamic and relational therapy, attachment-focused approaches, CBT and DBT, and Emotionally Focused Therapy and the Gottman Method for couples.
With couples, the focus is often on understanding the cycle the two of you have become caught in, rather than deciding who is right or wrong. We work toward making it easier to reach each other, communicate what is happening underneath the conflict, and respond differently when the familiar pattern begins to take over.
A thread that runs through much of this work is the body. Stress, trauma, and longstanding relational patterns do not exist only in thought. They can show up in how you breathe, hold tension, brace for what might happen, disconnect, shut down, or go numb.
That is part of why insight can be real and still not be enough. You may understand exactly why you react the way you do and still find your body responding before your thinking mind has a chance to catch up.
The work is about helping what you know intellectually become something you can actually experience differently.
Cultural context
Many of my clients carry experiences shaped by immigration, bicultural or multicultural identity, family systems built around survival, or the particular exhaustion of moving between cultural worlds.
They may have arrived in therapy before and found themselves explaining before they could begin. Laying groundwork. Providing context. Sometimes doing more teaching than healing.
That does not need to happen here.
The cultural, relational, familial, and historical contexts that shaped you are part of how I understand you from the beginning. Culture is not an add-on to the work, and it is not something you should have to translate before it can be taken seriously.
You do not have to simplify your story to be understood.
Background
I earned my Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from The New School for Social Research, where I was a Statue Foundation Fellow. My work in psychology has spanned more than a decade and has included clinical practice, psychological assessment, academic research, and work in community mental health, hospital, foster care, university, and private-practice settings.
My doctoral research focused on intimate partner violence in immigrant communities, reflecting a longstanding interest in the intersection of trauma, culture, relationships, migration, and family systems. My research has been published in peer-reviewed journals and presented at national professional conferences.
Over time, my clinical training has increasingly focused on the gap between understanding a problem and being able to experience something differently. I am an EMDRIA-certified EMDR therapist and EMDR Consultant-in-Training, with additional advanced training in Accelerated Resolution Therapy, Somatic Experiencing, Emotionally Focused Therapy, psychodynamic and relational approaches, and cognitive and behavioral therapies.
I also provide consultation to other clinicians in EMDR and in clinical work with adults with ADHD.
That breadth matters because the concerns people bring to therapy rarely fall neatly into one category. ADHD may be intertwined with years of shame or self-criticism. Anxiety may have roots in trauma or attachment. Relationship difficulties may involve culture, family history, nervous-system responses, and patterns that developed long before the current relationship.
Good therapy has to be able to hold more than one explanation at a time.
Beginning therapy
You do not need to arrive knowing exactly what needs to change.
You may only know that something is not working the way it used to, that you are tired of repeating the same pattern, or that understanding yourself has taken you as far as it can.
We can start there.
Your history matters. So does what becomes possible now. Change often begins when the things that once felt automatic start to feel like choices.
CREDENTIALS
DEGREE
Ph.D., Clinical Psychology, The New School
LICENSURE
NY and CT · PSYPACT (40 states)
EMDR
EMDRIA-certified, Consultant-in-Training
COUPLES
Gottman Method Level II · EFT trained
ADDITIONAL