About Mind Therapy

Mind Therapy is a New York State telehealth psychotherapy practice built on a simple conviction: that compassionate, clinically excellent mental health care should be within reach of every New Yorker — not a luxury reserved for those who can pay out of network. We provide compassion, skills, and positive psychological change, delivered by a team of thirteen licensed clinicians under the direction of Ally Nektalov, LCSW, Master CASAC.

What we do

We provide outpatient psychotherapy — individual therapy for adults, couples therapy, and therapy for children and adolescents — entirely by secure, HIPAA-compliant video, to clients anywhere in New York State. Our clinicians practice a range of established, evidence-based modalities: cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), Internal Family Systems (IFS), psychodynamic and insight-oriented psychotherapy, the Gottman Method for couples, motivational interviewing, and trauma-informed care. The modality is chosen to fit the person, never the other way around.

Because the right fit matters as much as the right method, we begin every course of care with a matching process: you tell us what you’re carrying, and we pair you with the clinician whose training, experience, and manner best fit your needs, your schedule, and your insurance. We are in-network with major insurance plans, and we verify every client’s benefits before the first session, so the cost of care is known — and never a surprise.

Our mission

Mind Therapy was founded after our founder’s own discouraging search for an accessible, in-network therapist — an experience familiar to far too many New Yorkers, who are told to seek help and then find waitlists, out-of-network rates, and phone calls that are never returned. Our mission is to remove the two oldest barriers between people and good psychotherapy: cost and access.

That means remaining in-network when many practices are leaving insurance panels; it means evening and weekend hours for people whose work does not pause for healing; it means telehealth that reaches from Brooklyn to Buffalo; and it means answering as real people, within one business day, every time. No one should have to choose between care and cost.

Our values

• Compassion without judgment. People come to therapy carrying the things they can tell no one else. We receive them the way the healing professions always have at their best — with warmth, patience, and unconditional positive regard.
• The dignity of every person. Our clients are people, not diagnoses. We have served women and men from every walk of life — including communities that medicine has historically underserved — and we hold that every person who seeks help deserves the same standard of care.
• Confidentiality as a sacred trust. What is said in therapy stays in therapy. We honor the letter of HIPAA and the older tradition behind it: that healing requires a protected space, and that protecting it is the clinician’s first duty.
• Clinical excellence. Every Mind Therapy clinician is licensed in New York State, formally trained in the modalities they practice, and engaged in ongoing supervision and professional development. Three of our clinicians hold the Master CASAC credential — New York’s advanced certification in substance-use counseling.
• The therapeutic relationship first. A half-century of psychotherapy research agrees on one thing above all: the relationship between client and therapist is itself healing. We match deliberately, and you see the same therapist every session.
• First, do no harm. We practice within our competence, refer honestly when another provider would serve you better, and never let commercial considerations shape clinical judgment.

Who we serve

We serve New Yorkers across the lifespan — children and adolescents (with parents appropriately involved and consent handled carefully under New York law), adults, older adults, and couples. Our clients include anxious young professionals navigating demanding careers; parents worried about a withdrawing teenager; couples caught in the same argument; adults carrying trauma, grief, depression, or an unhealthy relationship with food or substances; and people who simply sense that something needs to change.

Our team reflects the state we serve. We offer therapy in English, Spanish, and Italian; our clinicians bring deep experience with women’s mental health and postpartum adjustment, LGBTQ+ clients, communities affected by the justice system, and school communities across New York City. Because every session is telehealth, geography is no longer a gatekeeper: clients join us from all five boroughs, Long Island, Westchester, and every region of upstate New York.

Evidence of outcomes

Psychotherapy is among the best-studied interventions in medicine, and the evidence for it is strong. Reviews published by the American Psychological Association conclude that about 75% of people who enter psychotherapy show benefit from it. Meta-analytic research places the average effect of psychotherapy on par with or exceeding many widely accepted medical interventions.

The way we practice is built directly on that evidence base. Cognitive behavioral therapy — a cornerstone of our work — is supported by hundreds of controlled trials across anxiety, depression, and trauma (Hofmann et al., 2012, Cognitive Therapy and Research). The telehealth format we use is not a compromise: a 2021 meta-analysis of 57 studies found videoconferenced therapy as effective as in-person treatment for anxiety, depression, and PTSD (Batastini et al., 2021, Clinical Psychology Review). And the largest meta-analysis of its kind — 295 studies — confirms that the therapeutic alliance is one of the most reliable predictors of good outcomes (Flückiger et al., 2018, Psychotherapy), which is why we invest so heavily in matching you with the right clinician and keeping you with the same therapist throughout your care.

Within our own practice, progress is measured where it matters most: collaboratively, with you. Your therapist will revisit your goals with you regularly, track what is changing, and adjust the work — because good outcomes are not an accident of method, but the product of attention.

Begin when you’re ready

If what you have read here sounds like the kind of care you have been looking for, we would be honored to meet you. Meet our thirteen clinicians, explore our services, or book a first appointment — most clients begin within the same week, and most in-network clients pay only their copay.