Location

Sterling Counseling offers evidence-based, culturally informed therapy for the BIPOC professionals on the Upper West Side who have built rich intellectual, artistic, and cultural lives alongside distinguished careers, and who have spent considerably more time examining the lives of others, their subjects, their audiences, their communities, than they have spent examining the patterns that are costing them something significant. This practice was built for the person whose inner life is genuinely sophisticated and whose own patterns have, until now, been the one blind spot. The Upper West Side extends from 59th Street to 110th along the western side of Central Park, with Central Park West carrying the prewar apartment buildings that define the neighborhood's architectural identity: the Dakota at 72nd Street, where history and legend coexist; the San Remo with its twin towers at 74th; the Beresford at 81st. Riverside Drive runs parallel to the west, with Riverside Park extending from 72nd to 125th Street along the Hudson River, offering views of the Palisades across the water. Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts anchors the southern end of the neighborhood at 65th and Broadway, drawing the cultural life of the entire city to this stretch of the Upper West Side. Zabar's on Broadway has fed the neighborhood's intellectual and domestic life for decades. The Natural History Museum occupies the Central Park West blocks between 77th and 81st. Broadway from 72nd to 110th Street carries the daily commercial rhythm of the neighborhood. Columbia University presses against the northern edge at 110th, connecting the Upper West Side to Morningside Heights. The Upper West Side's BIPOC professionals tend to be cultural, intellectual, and artistic in their orientation. The music director, the essayist, the documentary filmmaker, the nonprofit leader, the novelist. These are people whose external lives look right from every angle, whose contributions to their fields are genuine and significant, and who have, often for the first time, begun to sense that the inner life deserves the same quality of attention they bring to everything else. Therapist Upper West Side means holding that realization with the cultural and intellectual sophistication it requires.

The BIPOC professionals on the Upper West Side who come to this practice often bring considerable self-knowledge. The musician who understands the origins of their perfectionism but still cannot set down the score at eleven at night. The journalist who can name the anxiety pattern precisely and who still wakes up at three with it. The nonprofit leader who has spent a career in service to others and who has never had a space that was simply and clinically theirs. This practice was built for exactly that particular combination of awareness and persistent pattern. As this work progresses, the patterns that have resisted self-knowledge begin to yield to something deeper. The analytical capacity that is the Upper West Side professional's primary tool meets clinical approaches that reach the level where the patterns are actually held. The inner life becomes something more than examined. It becomes workable. Racial and cultural context is the clinical foundation from the first session. The specific experience of being a BIPOC professional in the cultural and intellectual life of the Upper West Side is held as primary clinical material throughout.

For the writers, artists, and cultural professionals of the Upper West Side, grief often arrives with a particular quality of meaning-making that is both a resource and a way of maintaining distance from the actual experience of loss. This service holds the space for grief that is not mediated by its artistic or intellectual processing, and that does not require it to produce something. The work holds personal bereavement, anticipatory grief, collective and cultural mourning, and the griefs that accumulate over a career of deep cultural engagement. The losses that arrive when a creative community loses one of its own. The anticipatory weight of a parent's decline, experienced by someone whose entire career has been built around giving language to human experience. Where advance care planning belongs in the clinical picture, it is integrated naturally. The practical and emotional dimensions of preparing for what is coming are addressed together.

Upper West Side BIPOC couples often share an intellectual and cultural orientation that has made their relationship rich in many dimensions and that has also, sometimes, provided an inexhaustible supply of subjects for examination that are not themselves. The cultural figures, the social questions, the life of the mind in all its forms. This work invites the relationship itself to become the subject, and holds the space for that examination with the depth it deserves. As this work progresses, the capacity for genuine presence with each other grows. The distance that intellectual engagement has sometimes made comfortable begins to close. The emotional architecture underneath the shared culture becomes more accessible and more workable. Emotion-Focused Therapy and Attachment-Based approaches form the clinical foundation. This practice is LGBTQ+ affirming and holds both partners' intersectional identities fully.

The BIPOC professionals on the Upper West Side whose careers are oriented around culture, journalism, or the arts are often highly fluent in the language of trauma as a social and historical phenomenon and considerably less practiced at addressing it as a personal one. The racial microaggressions absorbed in institutions that prize their diversity messaging. The childhood experiences that are still writing the adult relational script. The professional encounters that lodged in the body despite years of intellectual processing. The fluency does not equal resolution. The change in this work is physiological rather than cognitive. The nervous system's relationship to specific memories and triggers shifts. The baseline activation that has been running beneath the creative and intellectual work begins to settle. A capacity for presence that the chronic activation had been consuming becomes available. Treatment is calibrated to the client's specific trauma history and paced for the genuine readiness of their nervous system. The clinical approaches reach trauma at the depth where it is actually held rather than at the level of the articulate account of it.

There is a category of experience that the most intellectually sophisticated BIPOC professionals on the Upper West Side carry that the analytical intelligence has not been able to reach. The racial incident that still activates the body regardless of how fully it has been processed cognitively. The childhood experience that is still writing the relational script despite decades of self-examination. The creative wound from an early critical failure that still shapes how every new work is anticipated. EMDR addresses those experiences at the level where they are held. What clients describe after completing this work is a shift that is felt in the body before it is understood in the mind. The activations that used to arrive reliably lose their charge. The anticipatory dread that has accompanied certain creative and professional situations fades. The present becomes more available for the actual richness of the Upper West Side life that the pattern has been consuming. The eight-phase protocol is delivered with cultural and intellectual fluency and paced for what the client's nervous system is genuinely ready for. Preparation phases receive the full clinical attention they require before processing begins.

The BIPOC professionals on the Upper West Side who come to CBT through this practice often arrive having read extensively about the cognitive mechanisms of their own patterns. The anxiety is understood theoretically and still present practically. The perfectionism is named and categorized and still governing the creative process. CBT here is culturally grounded, holding the racial and creative context of those patterns as central rather than applying a standardized protocol to a presentation that is anything but standard. Progress tends to appear as a changed quality of the internal experience during the creative and professional encounters that have been most activating. The thought cycles become shorter. The anxiety becomes proportionate to actual conditions rather than anticipatory and ambient. The reactivity that has characterized certain professional interactions becomes a steadier and more intentional response. Where the cognitive patterns have roots in deeper relational or traumatic history, the work extends to address that foundation. The approach adapts to what the client's specific presentation actually requires.

The Upper West Side's BIPOC cultural and intellectual professionals navigate a version of imposter syndrome that is inseparable from the specific culture of the neighborhood. The novelist who has published to genuine critical acclaim and who still does not believe the next book is legitimate until it is finished and received. The journalist whose work has shaped public conversation and who still anticipates that the next assignment will reveal them as having been admitted under false pretenses. The achievement is real. The doubt runs alongside it continuously. The shift this work produces is a changed relationship to creative and professional authority. The work becomes something the client can trust in rather than perpetually prove through. The internal voice that has been questioning every achievement begins to become quieter and less authoritative. The clinical approach holds the cognitive dimension of imposter syndrome alongside the systemic reality of cultural institutions that have withheld validation along racial lines throughout the careers of many of the most significant BIPOC artists and intellectuals working today. Both dimensions require clinical attention.

The BIPOC nonprofit leaders, arts executives, and organizational directors on the Upper West Side who seek coaching support navigate a leadership complexity that includes the racial dynamics of authority alongside the specific political and relational pressures of leading institutions that prize their progressive values and sometimes still demonstrate their limits in how they treat their BIPOC leaders. This coaching work produces a clarity about what the client is actually building and why, a more grounded relationship to the institutional politics that have been consuming their attention, and a leadership that is more genuinely theirs and less shaped by the accumulated expectations of the environment around them. Twelve years of clinical work with BIPOC high achievers at every level of professional distinction inform every coaching engagement. The cultural and racial dimensions of leadership in the arts and nonprofit sectors are held as central throughout.

“Olivia has walked with me from emerging to young adulthood, and in doing so I've become more present and assured due to her therapeutic process. Olivia's deep clinical expertise coupled with her worldliness forge an expansive approach to healing—a journey that's been a worthwhile investment of time and energy. Being under Olivia's care has allowed me to re-imagine life stressors and become reacquainted with joy. If there's any part of you that wants to come home to yourself, Sterling Counseling Services is the space to do so. Olivia's work feels more like a calling than just a duty, and I recommend her wholeheartedly. Thank you!”

— S.T.

“I have worked with Olivia since 2021 and cannot emphasize how transformative of an experience I have had over the last six years. I am immeasurably privileged to have had the opportunity to work with her through some of the most challenging years of my twenties. Olivia is one of my biggest supporters and confidants, and always there to listen without judgement. She has equipped me with tools and techniques to manage my anxiety and navigate turbulent moments and life changes. During a time when I felt truly "stuck," she was patient and compassionate. Through the years, she has encouraged me to develop the confidence to move forward and pursue some of my most lofty goals. We have explored topics like family dynamics, relationships, grief and career changes. One of the best things about my time working with Olivia has been her ability to help me reconnect with parts of myself that I felt like I forgot about. Olivia encouraged me to pursue one of my already existing but somewhat dormant hobbies, including running. I took up running again, which has brought me so much peace and mental clarity and I am pleased to say that I got into the New York City Marathon this fall. I highly recommend her services to anyone looking for trauma-informed care to help them feel "unstuck" and reconnect with themselves.”

— JP.

"Working with Olivia has been such a gift. She’s patient, kind, insightful, compassionate, adaptable, and attentive (aka everything that you’d want a therapist to embody). But something that makes working with her feel really special and safe is her cultural and sociopolitical fluency. She understands that just like trauma, our identities and our worlds are complex, and she does a brilliant job honoring and holding all of those complexities in balance. I feel really seen in her care, and through her guidance and support, I’ve been able to build my skill set and resilience for navigating life’s challenges, and find my way back to reclaiming my voice and sense of self.”

— CB.

“My experience with Sterling Counseling has been transformative. Olivia's style allows me to feel comfortable and safe while working through the toughest moments of my life. Therapy here doesn't feel like a chore, but an active part of my mental wellness routine with tools and recommendations that are easy to act on. No matter what I come into a session with - whether it is grief, depression, fears, work stress, or life changes - Olivia helps me work through it all with such care. I'm so grateful for everything Sterling Counseling has done for me.”

— R.C.

“Olivia has helped me thoughtfully navigate several major transitions in my romantic relationships, familial relationships, friendships, my career, and my mental and physical health. She has skillfully blended different therapeutic modalities to help me address my unique circumstances and challenges, so I always feel like I have a way to approach the things I bring to therapy that is tailored exactly to me. Olivia balances challenging me to think differently when necessary, while also remaining warm and non-judgmental. I have made significant progress with my overall mental health. Thanks to my work with Olivia, I know myself better, I am managing my challenges better, and I feel empowered."

— S.T.

“Olivia has walked with me from emerging to young adulthood, and in doing so I've become more present and assured due to her therapeutic process. Olivia's deep clinical expertise coupled with her worldliness forge an expansive approach to healing—a journey that's been a worthwhile investment of time and energy. Being under Olivia's care has allowed me to re-imagine life stressors and become reacquainted with joy. If there's any part of you that wants to come home to yourself, Sterling Counseling Services is the space to do so. Olivia's work feels more like a calling than just a duty, and I recommend her wholeheartedly. Thank you!”

— S.T.

“I have worked with Olivia since 2021 and cannot emphasize how transformative of an experience I have had over the last six years. I am immeasurably privileged to have had the opportunity to work with her through some of the most challenging years of my twenties. Olivia is one of my biggest supporters and confidants, and always there to listen without judgement. She has equipped me with tools and techniques to manage my anxiety and navigate turbulent moments and life changes. During a time when I felt truly "stuck," she was patient and compassionate. Through the years, she has encouraged me to develop the confidence to move forward and pursue some of my most lofty goals. We have explored topics like family dynamics, relationships, grief and career changes. One of the best things about my time working with Olivia has been her ability to help me reconnect with parts of myself that I felt like I forgot about. Olivia encouraged me to pursue one of my already existing but somewhat dormant hobbies, including running. I took up running again, which has brought me so much peace and mental clarity and I am pleased to say that I got into the New York City Marathon this fall. I highly recommend her services to anyone looking for trauma-informed care to help them feel "unstuck" and reconnect with themselves.”

— JP.

The Upper West Side's cultural and intellectual life is one I know from growing up in New York City, and the specific clinical weight that BIPOC professionals carry inside it is one I have spent over twelve years developing the expertise to hold. Trained at Columbia University and shaped by clinical work with the full range of high-achieving BIPOC professionals, I built this practice around the recognition that the most analytical minds often have the hardest time accessing the clinical work that reaches beneath analysis. The patterns that have been examined everywhere deserve a space where they can actually change. Defying impossible odds got you here. The work here is what happens after.

How to find an aligned Black therapist?
Finding a Black therapist in New York who is the right clinical fit, not just culturally competent on paper, but actually built for the specific complexity of your life, takes more than a directory search. Start by identifying what you actually need from the work: racial trauma treatment, evidence-based modalities, a practice designed for high-achieving professionals, or all of the above. Sterling Counseling was built for exactly this. You can reach out directly through the contact page to start a conversation and find out whether this is the right fit before committing to anything.
Is it important to see a Black therapist as a Black person?
For many clients, yes, and the clinical reasons go deeper than representation. A Black therapist brings shared cultural context that changes what is possible in the room. You do not have to spend sessions explaining why racial microaggressions affect your sleep, or why being the only one in a room of hundreds carries a specific kind of weight. That context is already in the room, which means the work can begin where it actually needs to, not at the level of education, but at the level of treatment. At Sterling Counseling, racial trauma is not a side topic. It is part of the clinical formulation from session one.
What is a red flag for a Black therapist?
For high-achieving BIPOC professionals, the most common red flag is a therapist who cannot hold the full context. If you spend the first several sessions explaining what systemic racism costs before the actual work can begin, that room is not built for you. Other red flags include feeling judged for your success, having your cultural or racial experience minimized or sidestepped, receiving generic treatment that does not account for your specific life, or leaving sessions more depleted than when you arrived. At Sterling Counseling, the context you have spent years translating is the clinical floor we start on, not a detour.
I have tried therapy before and it did not help. How is this different?
Most therapy rooms are not built for the specific clinical complexity of high-achieving BIPOC professionals. If your previous experience required you to educate your therapist before the real work could begin, or if the treatment felt disconnected from the actual weight you were carrying, that is a failure of fit, not a failure of therapy or of you.
Do I need a diagnosis to work with you?
No. Many of the clients who come to Sterling Counseling are high-functioning by every external measure and have never received a formal diagnosis. What they carry, racial trauma, childhood attachment wounds, unnamed ADHD, the long performance of composure, does not always come with a label. You do not need one to begin. You need a clinical space built to hold the full picture and a clinician trained to work with it precisely.
What does the first session look like?
The first session is a conversation, not an assessment. We use the time to begin building the clinical picture together, your history, your current experience, what brought you here, and what you want from the work. There is no script and no standardized intake form driving the agenda. By the end of the first session, you should have a clear sense of whether this space feels right and what working together could look like. The goal is for you to leave feeling met, not processed.
Do you accept insurance?
Yes. We accept the following insurance plans for grief counseling services. Private pay is also available. If you're using out-of-network benefits, we can also provide a superbill for reimbursement.

We use Thrizer as our payment platform to process out-of-network benefits and payments. Out-of-pocket rates are available as outlined above.

Accepted insurance plans include:

Aetna
Oscar
Optum
United Healthcare
Cigna
Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield of New York
Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts
Carelon Behavioral Health
Are sessions in person or virtual?
All sessions are currently offered virtually through a secure, HIPAA-compliant telehealth video platform. At this time, Sterling Counseling does not offer in-person appointments, allowing clients across New York to access care from the privacy and convenience of their own space.
Cancellation policy
Sessions are typically 55 minutes long and are scheduled at a consistent weekly time, although session frequency may be adjusted based on your needs. If you need to cancel or reschedule, please provide at least 24 hours' notice. Appointments canceled with less than 24 hours' notice, or missed without notice, are subject to a $75 cancellation fee, unless circumstances beyond your control prevented you from attending. If availability allows, we'll do our best to help you reschedule. Please also plan to arrive on time, as sessions will end at their scheduled time.

Here is how the work unfolds.

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Explore my therapy services and specializations

Individual Therapy for High Achievers

Grief Counseling

Couples Therapy

Trauma Therapy

EMDR & PTSD Therapy

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

Imposter Syndrome Therapy

Executive Coaching

Area we serve

Testimonials

Meet Olivia Sterling, Black -Afro Latina therapist in New York City

Frequently Asked Questions

How to find an aligned Black therapist?

Is it important to see a Black therapist as a Black person?

What is a red flag for a Black therapist?

I have tried therapy before and it did not help. How is this different?

Do I need a diagnosis to work with you?

What does the first session look like?

Do you accept insurance?

Are sessions in person or virtual?

Cancellation policy

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