Affirmative Therapy Collective

All Are Welcome Here
  • Who We Are
    • Our Clinicians
    • Lauren Canonico, LCSW
    • Lee Warwick, LMSW
    • Sophie Talmadge Silleck, LMSW
    • Sophie Kuhn Bedaña, LCSW
    • Asher M. Seruya, LCSW
  • What We Offer
    • All Services
    • Individual Psychotherapy
    • Couples, Relationship, & Family Therapy
    • Supervision & Consultation
    • Group Psychotherapy
  • Get Started
    • Contact
    • FAQ
    • Check Your Benefits
    • Good Faith Estimate
  • Blog
  • Media
  • Lauren Canonico, LCSW
  • Asher M. Seruya, LCSW
  • Sophie Kuhn Bedaña, LCSW
  • Lee Warwick, LMSW
  • Sophie Talmadge Silleck, LMSW
Sex Worker Affirming Therapy NYC | ATC

Sex Worker Affirming Therapy NYC | ATC

by Lauren Canonico | May 6, 2026 | Sophie Talmadge Silleck, LMSW, Thoughts & News from ATC

You Are More Than Your Job: Navigating Intimacy as a Current or Former Sex Worker by Lauren Canonico, LCSW and Sophie Talmadge Silleck, LMSW Sex work is work. And like any work, it doesn’t define the whole of who you are. But try telling that to a culture that...
Heated Rivalry and Sexual Intimacy | Affirmative Therapy

Heated Rivalry and Sexual Intimacy | Affirmative Therapy

by Lauren Canonico | Feb 11, 2026 | Sophie Talmadge Silleck, LMSW, Thoughts & News from ATC

The new TV hit, Heated Rivalry, offers an intimate look into a budding sexual relationship between two male hockey players. Viewers of all genders and sexualities have swooned over the couple, lauding the focus on consent and emotional safety in sexual intimacy. Join...
Dry January: Pros and Cons for the Curious

Dry January: Pros and Cons for the Curious

by Lauren Canonico | Jan 12, 2026 | Sophie Talmadge Silleck, LMSW, Thoughts & News from ATC

Taking the opportunity to reflect on your relationship with alcohol in the New Year? You’re not alone! Dry January is a growing trend. But is it right for you? Join Sophie Talmadge Silleck, LMSW in exploring the pros and cons of experimenting with Dry January....
Avoiding Impulsive Shopping this Holiday Season

Avoiding Impulsive Shopping this Holiday Season

by Lauren Canonico | Dec 22, 2025 | Sophie Talmadge Silleck, LMSW, Thoughts & News from ATC

Navigating shopping during the holiday season while struggling with impulse control can be a special challenge. The holiday season is one of gift-giving. But what happens when our brains are wired for impulsivity, and each purchase gives us a lovely dopamine hit?...
Honoring our Culture in Eating Disorder Recovery

Honoring our Culture in Eating Disorder Recovery

by Lauren Canonico | Dec 16, 2025 | Sophie Talmadge Silleck, LMSW, Thoughts & News from ATC

Eating Disorder Recovery Reminders: Hanukkah Edition Join Sophie Talmadge Silleck, LMSW, in exploring how we honor our cultural celebrations while in eating disorder recovery. Tonight we celebrate the third night of Hanukkah, the Jewish Festival of Lights! Hanukkah is...
Alcohol and the Holiday Season

Alcohol and the Holiday Season

by Lauren Canonico | Nov 23, 2025 | Sophie Talmadge Silleck, LMSW, Thoughts & News from ATC

No matter what or how you celebrate during the holiday season, alcohol and drinking culture tend to be part of the equation. This can be stressful for those who are sober, sober-curious, or just trying to cut back. Join ATC associate, Sophie Talmadge Silleck, LMSW, in...

Recent Posts

  • Queer Stigma and Mental Health: What LGBTQ+ People Face
  • Therapy for Neurodivergent and Trans People: What to Know
  • Sex Worker Affirming Therapy NYC | ATC
  • What’s (Romantic) Love Got to do with It? | ATC
  • Heated Rivalry and Sexual Intimacy | Affirmative Therapy

Recent Comments

    Poly Friendly Professionals listing logo image - white text on a dark background with overlapping purple circles on the left side.
    Manhattan Alternative logo
    Poly Friendly Professionals listing logo image - white text on a dark background with overlapping purple circles on the left side.
    Manhattan Alternative logo
    Poly Friendly Professionals listing logo image - white text on a dark background with overlapping purple circles on the left side.
    Covid Conscious Therapist Directory link

    Ready to start the process of matching you with one of our therapists?

    Fill out the screening

    Connect With Us on Instagram

    affirmativetherapycollective

    LGBTQIA+ affirmative therapy🌈
    Client Screening Form ⬇️
    Queer therapists who get stigma🫂🏳️‍🌈 🏳️‍⚧️
    NYC + telehealth: NY NJ CO CT FL MI MN PA WI

    What if the shame you feel about your work isn't y What if the shame you feel about your work isn't yours?

It was handed to you.

Internalized stigma doesn't announce itself.

It shows up as the voice that says you don't deserve a relationship that actually works 💔

The one that tells you the distance you feel from your partner makes sense because of what you do.

The one that makes you wonder if the hard stuff is just... your fault🤍

That voice isn't truth.

It's what happens when the world spends years telling you that your work makes you less worthy of care.

Research backs this up: chronic exposure to shame-based messaging gets absorbed ✨️

It looks like self-isolation. Depression.

Interpreting your own pain as deserved.

That's internalized stigma doing exactly what it was designed to do 🫯

Sophie Talmadge Silleck, LMSW created Sex Work and Intimacy: You Are More Than Your Job because untangling that in a room full of people who already get the context is different.

Faster. More honest. Less exhausting.🤍

Wednesday evenings via Zoom.

$90 / 90 min | 2 sliding-scale spots at $25 minimum.

Current or former sex workers who identify as female or non-binary, 18+, US-wide, are invited to apply.

Complete the screening form to get started. Please note there is a $50 screening session fee and a cap of 10 participants for this group session.
.
.
.

#sexworkermentalhealth #stigma #queeraffirmingtherapy #sexworkersupport #NYCTherapist
    You don't have to spend the first 20 minutes of ev You don't have to spend the first 20 minutes of every session explaining your job.

5 things I watch shift when sex workers finally have a space built for them:

1. The shame gets named. Internalized stigma isn't a personality flaw. It's what happens when the world spends YEARS telling you that you're the problem. 

2. The double life gets lighter.✨ Holding two completely different versions of yourself is exhausting. You don't have to justify that here.

3. Intimacy stops feeling like a contradiction. Spending your day in intimate spaces and coming home to disconnection is its own kind of exhausting. We name it here.

4. You get clear on what you actually want from your relationships. Not the version that's easiest to explain. The version that's actually true.

5. You start letting yourself be cared for.

✨I'm Sophie Talmadge Silleck, LMSW. This group exists because this conversation deserves its own room.

Wednesday evenings via Zoom. $90 per 90-min session and $50 for your 30-min client screening with 2 sliding-scale spots available. Capped at 10!

Female or non-binary, 18+, current or former sex workers, US-wide

Complete our screening form in our bio to get started.🌷

...

#sexworkermentalhealth #internalizedstigma #queeraffirmingtherapy #intimacygroup
    🏳️‍⚧️ Being trans isn't the issue. 🌈 Being queer i 🏳️‍⚧️ Being trans isn't the issue.
🌈 Being queer isn't the issue.
🌙 Being a sex worker isn't the issue.
😍 Being fat isn't the issue.
👏🏾 Being Black, Indigenous, or a person of color isn't the issue.
💕 Being disabled isn't the issue.
💡 Being neurodivergent isn't the issue.

The world just hasn't built enough space for people like us yet.

That's not on you 🫶

DM us SEEN and we'll send you more on how we work with people navigating exactly this.

#queerandtrans #affirmingtherapist #fataffirming #bodyliberation #stigmafree
    Research connects neurodivergence and gender expan Research connects neurodivergence and gender expansive identities more closely than most people realize.

When you've spent your whole life noticing that the world's rules don't quite fit you, you get really good at trusting what does.

That same drive for authenticity, that same ability to see through the bullshit of norms, is often what leads you to discover yourself and your gender story.

That might look like knowing your experience of your body didn't match the gender others assigned to you before you even had words for it.🩵

Or hearing your own voice clearly, and going quiet anyway, because the fear of being left alone was louder. ✨️

Or coming out later in life, once you finally found language that fit.

Or just always having a quiet, stubborn sense of self that you tried everything to ignore, because being accepted felt safer than being known.

The overlap between embracing neurodivergence and embodying gender expansive identities isn't a coincidence.

It's two versions of the same truth: knowing yourself from the inside out.

Our latest blog post goes deep on what the research says and why it matters for your mental health care.

Visit our profile to read the rest...💡

This one's for you 🏳️‍⚧️
.
.
.
.
.
#neurodivergent #trans #transgendermentalhealth #genderdiversity #queermentalhealth autisticandtrans
    A space that was built with you in mind from the s A space that was built with you in mind from the start. ✨️

Coming Home to You is a virtual group therapy experience for trans and nonbinary people navigating body image, eating disorder recovery, and gender identity.

Neurodivergent people aren't an afterthought here. 😊

Different communication styles, different nervous systems, different relationships with your body.

All are welcome here 🏳️‍🌈 🏳️‍⚧️ 🫂

Facilitated by Sophie Kuhn Bedaña, LCSW at Affirmative Therapy Collective. Available in NY, NJ, CO, CT, FL, MI, MN, PA, and WI.

DM us HOME and we'll send you the screening form directly✨️

#transnonbinary #neurodivergenttherapy #eatingdisorderrecovery #queeraffirming #transmentalhealth
    You've been the strong one in every room. The one You've been the strong one in every room.

The one who figured it out, moved on, and made it look easy. 💔

Queer life asks a lot of you ✨

And most therapy WASN'T built with that in mind.

Ours was.

At ATC, every clinician specializes in LGBTQIA+ affirmative care, body, sex, trauma, and everything in between.

No explaining yourself. 

Visit our website to complete our client screening form and get started.

A note about the audio: originally written and published by @NakeiaHomer 💛

#QueerTherapy #LGBTQMentalHealth #AffirmativeTherapist #QueerMentalHealth #NYCTherapist
    Diet culture didn't ask for your consent before it Diet culture didn't ask for your consent before it got inside your head.

It just showed up 💔

In the mirror, at the dinner table, in every "new year, new you" message that taught you smaller, more disciplined bodies are better bodies. 🪞

That's not self-improvement.

That's body image injury.

And if you're trans or gender non-conforming, it hits different because you're navigating all of that while also navigating your relationship with a body that the world has strong, wrong opinions about. 🌎

Coming Home to You is a 8-week virtual group exploring eating disorder recovery and body image injury within the trans experience.

✨Led by Sophie Kuhn Bedaña, LMSW✨

8 weeks | Saturdays via Zoom

$90/session | 2 sliding scale spots available | 18+

DM us HOME and we'll send you the screening form to join the waitlist.

#transnonbinary #bodyimageinjury #eatingdisorderrecovery #dietculturedropout #transbodyimage
    Your therapist's approach matters as much as who t Your therapist's approach matters as much as who they are 👏🏼👏🏾👏🏿

Affirmative Therapy Collective is an LGBTQIA+ affirming psychotherapy practice grounded in body, fat, and sex positivity, intersectional feminism, queer theory, anti-racism, and the Health at Every Size® (HAES) approach.

Here's our integrative approach. Every therapist at ATC emphasizes:

Psychodynamic · Harm Reduction · HAES®
Feminist Therapy · Relational Therapy · Somatic Trauma-Focused · Person-Centered 🫂

And depending on what you need, our clinicians incorporate:

✨ Parts Work — Lauren, Asher, Sophie B, Lee
✨ IFS — Lauren
✨ ERP — Asher, Sophie B
✨ Narrative Therapy — Asher, Sophie B, Sophie TS
✨ EFT — Lauren, Lee
✨ Sex Therapy - Sophie TS
✨ Creative / Art Therapy - Sophie B
✨ DBT - Lee, Sophie TS

Not sure which approach is right for you? 

That's what the first session is for:

Visit our website to complete our client screening form and get started. 

#AffirmativeTherapist #QueerTherapist #NYCTherapist #BodyPositivity #TransAffirming
    Follow on Instagram
    Manhattan Alternative logo
    Poly Friendly Professionals listing logo image - white text on a dark background with overlapping purple circles on the left side.
    Covid Conscious Therapist Directory link
    Poly Friendly Professionals listing logo image - white text on a dark background with overlapping purple circles on the left side.
    Affirmative Therapy Collective LCSW LLC

    Body, Sex, Trauma, Neurodivergent, and LGBTQ+ Affirmative Psychotherapy

    Eating disorder and trauma treatment done differently

     

    80 University Pl, Suite 2G, New York, NY 10003

    admin@affirmativetherapycollective.com

    (646) 504-1615

    Menu

    • Home
    • What We Offer
    • Who We Are
    • Contact
    • FAQ
    • Blog
    • Notice of Privacy Practices
    • Privacy Policy and Terms of Use

    Our Services

    • Individual Psychotherapy
    • Couples, Relationship, & Family Therapy
    • Group Psychotherapy
    • Supervision & Consultation
    • In-Person Clinicians
    • Therapeutic Approaches
    Affirmative Therapy Collective LCSW LLC

    Body, Sex, Trauma, Neurodivergent, and LGBTQ+ Affirmative Psychotherapy

    Eating disorder and trauma treatment done differently

     

    80 University Pl, Suite 2G, New York, NY 10003

    admin@affirmativetherapycollective.com

    (646) 504-1615