Psychotherapist in Merrick NY — relational psychoanalytic psychotherapy, depth therapy, individual therapy for adults, Long Island, Nassau County, New York, Rhode Island, Florida telehealth.

Depth psychotherapy · Merrick, NY

Something in you keeps
asking to be known.

You're thoughtful, capable, and self-aware enough to know that thinking hasn't been enough. The anxiety still persists. The patterns still repeat. Something keeps pulling at you — a sense that the life you're living isn't fully yours, or that there's more to understand about why you are the way you are.

Schedule a consultation Learn about my approach

Accepting new patients · In-person & telehealth

You may recognize yourself here

✦

You've tried to think your way through it

You're intelligent and self-aware. You understand the patterns intellectually. But understanding them hasn't changed them — and you're tired of insight that doesn't move.

✦

The same things keep happening

In your relationships, your work, your inner life — certain dynamics recur. Different circumstances, same feelings. You sense the source is somewhere earlier, somewhere deeper.

✦

You want more than strategies

You may have tried therapy before. The tools helped, somewhat. But you're not looking for coping strategies — you want a different relationship with yourself, not just better tools for managing the one you have.

The approach

Therapy that works with your awareness — and beyond it

I practice relational psychoanalytic psychotherapy — a depth approach that works with what's happening beneath conscious awareness: the unconscious patterns, the early relational experiences, the ways the past lives on in the present. This isn't symptom management. It's genuine change.

This kind of work asks something real of you. It requires showing up consistently, tolerating uncertainty, and being willing to encounter parts of yourself that may be uncomfortable or unfamiliar. The therapeutic relationship itself becomes the instrument — what happens between us in the room is where the real work takes place.

Most of my patients come weekly. As the work deepens, many find twice-weekly sessions allow something genuinely different to develop.

An initial consultation

We begin with a 45-minute conversation — unhurried, exploratory. You're getting to know me as much as I'm getting to know you. There's no pressure to decide anything that session.

Regular, consistent sessions

Depth work happens over time, in a relationship built through repeated contact. Consistency isn't just logistical — it's structural to the process itself.

Following what's alive

We may start with anxiety, a relationship question, or a career transition. But we follow whatever surfaces — what recurs, what surprises you, what you've never quite put into words.

Change that holds

Lasting change isn't about acquiring new strategies. It's about something shifting at the level of who you are — in what you can feel, tolerate, and desire. Making the unconscious conscious is what frees us to live more fully.

The underlying belief

Why depth therapy is different

The parts of us that create the most suffering are often the parts we understand the least — not because we haven't thought about them, but because they live outside of thinking.

Relational psychoanalytic therapy works with what cognitive approaches can't always reach: the relational patterns laid down before we had words for them, the ways anxiety becomes organized in the body and nervous system, the unconscious meanings we make of our experience. Many people find that thinking harder doesn't resolve the problem. The work invites a different kind of knowing — slower, less linear, and ultimately more durable.

Is this the right fit?

This work tends to fit well if…

✦You're genuinely curious about yourself — not just about fixing symptoms, but about understanding what drives you and why you are the way you are

✦Anxiety, perfectionism, or a relentless inner critic have followed you across different jobs, relationships, and life stages

✦You sense that something significant happened earlier in your life that still shapes you — even if you can't quite name it

✦You're at a turning point — a major transition, a relationship question, a growing feeling that the life you've built isn't fully yours

✦You've had therapy before and felt it stayed too surface — you want a relationship and a process that can hold more

✦You're ready to invest real time, attention, and resources in this process — and you're willing to stay with the discomfort long enough for something to shift

About

Jill Sirota, LCSW

I'm a licensed psychotherapist in private practice in Merrick, NY. I work with adults who want more than symptom relief — people who are ready to understand themselves at a deeper level and change the patterns that have been shaping their lives.

My training is in psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic psychotherapy, which means I bring attention not only to what you bring to our sessions, but to what emerges between us — the subtle relational dynamics that often carry the most important material.

I find this work most alive with patients who are genuinely curious — about their inner life, about what happens in the room, about why they are the way they are. That curiosity, more than anything else, is what makes depth work possible.

Training & credentials

Education MSW · Boston University
BA · University of Michigan

Licensure New York (LCSW) · Rhode Island (ICSW) · Florida (Certified Telehealth)

Psychoanalytic training Suffolk Institute for Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis

Practice Private practice · Merrick, NY
In-person and telehealth · Telehealth only in RI and FL

Practice details Private pay · Superbill provided for out-of-network reimbursement

Begin

The first step is simply a conversation

A 15-minute phone consultation is free and without obligation. We can talk about what's bringing you in, what you're looking for, and whether this kind of work might be a good fit for you.

Something in you keeps asking to be known.