Support for women | Long Island & Virtual NYYou give everything to everyone.
When does someone show up for you?
Whether you're balancing a career, managing a household, navigating a relationship, or just trying to figure out who you are underneath all of it, your needs have been at the bottom of the list for long enough. The Nest is where that changes.
Your needs matter too
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Your needs matter too •
The stuff that actually keeps you up at night.
What We Help WithNot a generic list of symptoms. The real things. The ones you've been carrying quietly because nobody else seemed to have a category for them.
The Mental Load
The overfunctioning. The 2am to-do list. The exhaustion of being the only one who knows where anything is. We help you resign from being the only person with all the answers, without the paralyzing fear that everything will fall apart the moment you do.
Motherhood & Identity
The grief of infertility. The "who am I now?" of postpartum. The NICU experience nobody prepares you for. Birth trauma, reproductive loss, the intentional choice to remain child-free. Your path is valid here, full stop, no judgment, no shoulds.
Caregiving & Life Transitions
The sandwich strain of raising a child with special needs while watching a parent fade. Chronic illness and new diagnoses that turn your world into a foreign country overnight. Sexual assault and harassment your nervous system still remembers. The high-stress transitions, even the happy ones, that trigger a spiral nobody expects. We work at the pace of your nervous system, always.
Body & Boundaries
Diet culture. The "thin equals worthy" myth. Boundary burnout from being reliable for so long that "no" feels like a betrayal. Perfectionism and the good girl programming that tied your worth to your productivity. We help you untie your value from your to-do list so you can finally rest without feeling like you're failing.
We help you remember who you are after years of being everything to everyone else.
Our ApproachYou're not just tired. You're performing a role that was never meant for one person to carry alone. Sessions here aren't a place to vent and leave feeling the same. This is a real partnership built around actual work, using CBT, ACT, and a psychodynamic approach to heal the perfectionism, people-pleasing, and overfunctioning at the root instead of just managing it on the surface.
A mani-pedi is a great reset, and you still deserve that too, but it won't touch the kind of burnout that lives in your bones. This is your one hour a week that's entirely, unapologetically yours.
Therapists with this specialty -
![A young woman with long brown hair, smiling, sitting by a window with green plants in the background, wearing a blue dress with white trim.]()
Alicia Italiano, LCSW
E. Setauket | Virtual NY
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![A woman with wavy brown hair sitting on a black sofa near a large window, smiling, with a large green plant behind her, in a well-lit room.]()
Jamie Edwards, LCSW-R
E. Setauket | Virtual NY
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![A woman with glasses and long brown hair, wearing a teal shirt and black pants, sitting on a wooden stool near a large window with sunlight streaming in, and a leafy plant in the background.]()
Samantha Alotta, LMSW
E. Setauket | Virtual NY
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![A woman with wavy brown hair, glasses, wearing a green tank top and blue jeans, smiling at the camera, with tattoos on both arms, sitting in a room with a plant in the background.]()
Johanna Schwartz, LCSW
Brooklyn | Virtual NY
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![Smiling man with glasses and a beard, wearing a black shirt and watch, standing by a window with sunlight streaming in, with a plant in the background.]()
Rob Edwards, LMSW
E. Setauket | Virtual NY
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![A woman sitting, smiling, holding a ceramic mug with vertical striped pattern, in front of a plant with green leaves, indoors.]()
Maria Montelione, LCSW, PMH-C
E. Setauket | Virtual NY
Imagine actually feeling like yourself again.
The Work Pays OffThis is what the work is actually for. Not just managing the anxiety or getting through the week, but building a life that genuinely feels like yours again. One where you're not just surviving the list, you're actually living.
You gave yourself permission to be enough.
Not the version that has it all together. Not the version performing okay for everyone else. Just you, exactly as you are, finally feeling like that's enough.
You speak your truth without bracing for impact.
Boundaries that don't come with a side of guilt. Needs you can name out loud without immediately minimizing them. A voice you actually trust.
Your mind has room to breathe.
All the energy you've been spending on managing, juggling, and holding it together freed up for the things that actually matter to you. Present. Clear. Yours.
However you show up, the work is the same.
IN-PERSON THERAPY
Hang at The Nest. Visit our East Setauket office, inside Revival Strength & Recovery Wellness Center or at our new Brooklyn office.
ONLINE THERAPY
The comfy pants option. Virtual sessions anywhere across New York State.
A few things people usually want to know.
frequently asked questions-
Not at all. While we do hold specific space for the experiences of motherhood, fertility, and reproductive loss, the women's page exists for any woman carrying more than she should have to carry alone. Whether you're navigating career pressure, relationship dynamics, identity shifts, caregiver burnout, body image, or just the general exhaustion of being the reliable one for everyone else, this is for you. Motherhood is one part of the picture, not the whole frame.
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We hear this a lot, and we take it seriously. Therapy not working usually comes down to one of two things: the wrong fit, or an approach that wasn't actually built for what you were dealing with. At The Nest we don't do generic. The match matters, the method matters, and the relationship matters more than either of those. If you've sat across from someone who nodded along for an hour and called it progress, that's not what happens here. We'd rather you come in skeptical and be proven wrong than talk you into something that isn't actually right for you.
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Yes, and we'd actually argue that's the best time to start. You don't need a crisis, a diagnosis, or a rock bottom moment to deserve support. If something feels off, even subtly, that's enough. The women who tend to wait until things are "bad enough" are usually the same ones who've been quietly white-knuckling it for years while taking care of everyone else first. You don't have to earn your way into this room. You just have to show up.
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Absolutely, and it goes beyond general parenting support. Our team has worked with mothers at every stage, from the identity shift of new motherhood to the invisible weight of raising a child with special needs. Maria, one of our therapists, brings a deep clinical specialization in perinatal and postpartum support, with nearly a decade of experience in a Level 1 trauma hospital and a mother baby NICU unit. She works specifically with moms navigating high risk pregnancy, preterm birth, NICU trauma, postpartum depression and anxiety, perinatal OCD, pregnancy and infant loss, and the crushing shame of mom guilt that nobody warned you about. If you are a mom carrying something heavy, you are in exactly the right place.
Still have questions? We have answers.
You've spent long enough at the bottom of your own list.
One free, no pressure vibe check call is all it takes to see if The Nest is the right fit for you. No commitment, no intake forms, just a real conversation with someone who actually gets it.