Derek Bakay

Derek Bakay is a New York LMHC - Licensed Mental Health Counselor with 15 years of experience. He works with adults facing stress, anxiety, depression, career doubts, and life changes. He also lists life purpose among his focus areas and addresses parenting and relationship concerns.

Derek uses a mix of client-centered, cognitive behavioral, and solution-focused approaches. Sessions focus on clear goals and practical steps. He listens for what matters most, then helps people test small changes that fit their daily life.

People come to him for help with compassion fatigue, caregiving stress, chronic illness or disability adjustment, and midlife questions. He also supports men navigating fatherhood, commitment concerns, jealousy, and intimacy-related worries. Conversations tend to be straightforward and goal-oriented, aimed at reducing worry and increasing day-to-day functioning.

In sessions Derek works to identify unhelpful thoughts and behaviors and then tries alternative ways of responding. He uses problem-solving and short-term experiments alongside open, person-focused conversation. The aim is practical progress rather than labels or complicated theory.

His background includes years in varied clinical settings helping adults handle career setbacks and emotional overwhelm. If someone is unsure what matters next, he helps clarify priorities and test changes that fit their life. To start, visitors are asked to follow the site flow to view online therapy options and schedule a first session.

How his approaches translate to online work

Client-Centered Therapy focuses on listening and responding to the person in front of him. It helps when someone needs to be heard and to clarify what matters most in daily life. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) looks at thoughts and behaviors that keep stress and anxiety going. It uses practical exercises and small homework tasks to test new ways of coping. Solution-Focused Therapy concentrates on concrete goals and short-term steps. It helps people experiment with changes that can be tried quickly and adjusted as needed.

Finding the right mix of methods is part of the first sessions. Derek works together with clients to decide which approaches suit their needs, goals, and preferences. That collaboration guides whether sessions lean toward skills practice, reflective conversation, or short experiments.

The site’s booking flow shows the available online session options, so confirm the exact formats before scheduling. Online work can make it easier to fit sessions into a busy week, allow for shorter check-ins, and remove commute time. It also supports using practical homework between meetings and testing changes in real life while discussing results in the next session.