Emotional Abuse Therapist for Adults
When a relationship makes you question yourself, it can be hard to know what to trust.
Maybe there are no bruises or obvious threats. Maybe there are good days mixed in with the painful ones. From the outside, the relationship may even look perfectly normal.
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And yet, something doesn't feel right.
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You find yourself choosing your words carefully. Second-guessing your reactions. Apologizing when you're not sure what you did wrong. Wondering whether you're too sensitive or somehow responsible for the way you're being treated.
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Therapy gives you a private place to step outside the relationship dynamic and begin making sense of what you've been experiencing.
You don't need to have a label for what's happening before you talk about it.
Emotional Abuse Isn't Always Easy to Recognize
When someone repeatedly criticizes, controls, intimidates, manipulates, or undermines you, your sense of what is normal can gradually begin to shift.
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The person hurting you may also be someone you love deeply.
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Compassion for them and concern about how you're being treated can exist at the same time.
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You may find that:
You're constantly second-guessing yourself.
A conversation starts one way and somehow ends with you questioning what happened, what you said, or whether your feelings are justified.
You've become careful about what you say and do.
You anticipate how the other person might react and adjust yourself accordingly, sometimes without even realizing you're doing it.
You don't feel like the person you used to be.
You may feel less confident, less independent, or increasingly unsure of your own decisions—even if you're successful and capable in other areas of your life.
The Hardest Question Often Is: “Is This Really Abuse?”
Emotional abuse can happen between romantic partners, family members, friends, or even within professional relationships. It may involve persistent criticism, humiliation, gaslighting, control, intimidation, isolation, or attempts to undermine your independence.
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But relationships are complicated. There may also be affection, history, children, financial ties, shared responsibilities, or periods when things feel genuinely good.
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You may wonder whether you're partly responsible, whether you're overreacting, or whether leaving is really what you want.
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Therapy gives you space to examine what's happening without having to minimize your experience, defend the other person, or make an immediate decision about what you're going to do.
Making sense of what you've experienced.
Together, we can look closely at the dynamics of the relationship and put words to experiences that may have felt confusing or contradictory.
Rebuilding trust in yourself.
When you've spent a long time questioning yourself, learning to recognize and trust your own thoughts, feelings, and judgment can become an important part of the work.
Understanding what keeps the pattern in place.
We'll explore the attachments, fears, hopes, history, and relational patterns that can make setting boundaries, leaving, or responding differently so complicated—without blaming you for someone else's behavior.
Rediscovering what you want.
When so much energy has gone into managing another person's reactions, it can be difficult to be aware of your own needs and preferences. Therapy can create room for those parts of you again.
WHY Robert Bakst, LCSW
An Experienced Emotional Abuse Therapist
For more than 30 years, I've helped people work through difficult relationships, trauma, addiction, and major life changes.
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My approach is informed by five years of postgraduate psychoanalytic training and is collaborative and nonjudgmental. I won't tell you what you should do.
Instead, we'll work together to understand the dynamics you're experiencing, strengthen your trust in yourself, and consider what a healthier future could look like for you.
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I provide virtual therapy for clients throughout New York and Florida.
