Gil Consolini, Ph.D., LCSW - Clinical Director at NYC Counseling
Gil Consolini
Gil Consolini is the Clinical Director at NYC Counseling, and he earned both a bachelor’s and master’s degree from Columbia University and a PhD from NYU. He completed his post graduate training at The New York Center for Psychoanalytic Training, where he taught for many years. Gil was an adjunct professor at NYU and has published work in professional journals on a variety of mental health topics.
He often engages with those who have tried therapy and felt disappointed by clinicians who “didn’t talk” or “didn’t get me” or “didn’t help me change.”
Given his deep expertise with couples work, Gil is sought after as a speaker on the topic. He also conducts workshops externally and of NYC Counseling therapists. Gil has held leadership positions in several health care organizations. As Clinical Director at NYC Counseling, Gil oversees all clinical services, ensuring the highest-quality care across a variety of approaches.
With his thorough experience and training, Gil is able to work effectively with people struggling with a wide variety of emotional difficulties and interpersonal issues. He is particularly adept at engaging those who have never seen themselves as needing a therapist’s help with their personal unhappiness, professional challenges, or struggles in their relationships. This includes men reluctant to come in with their partners to improve their communication and emotional connection with each other.
Gil helps his clients feel comfortable enough to articulate their histories and fears in order to realize and resolve hurdles to achieving their hopes and dreams. As part of creating more fulfilling relationships, he works with individuals, families and couples to communicate more effectively with those closest to them.
I’m so excited for you to connect with Gil, check out his work, and follow along as he continues to help individuals cope with COVID-related strain on their emotional well-being, their health and mental health, and their intimate relationships.
I'd love it if you'd introduce yourself, what you do, and what you're working on.
I am the Clinical Director of NYC Counseling, a group psychotherapy practice in New York City. In this role, I direct and supervise the practice of other therapists, including a number who are new to the field. I also see a good number of patients myself. Not surprisingly, I suppose, I have become preoccupied professionally, as well as personally, with helping individuals cope with COVID-related strain on their emotional well-being, their health and mental health, and their intimate relationships. As numerous people in my field have pointed out, we are going through many of the same things that the people we are trying to help are going through. Like many other therapists, I have been working remotely and from home since mid-March. About six weeks or so into doing so, I said to my wife, “It must be driving you crazy having me around all the time.” I was, of course, expecting her to tell me that she did not feel that way at all and how nice it had been to be seeing me so often. So, when she quickly responded, “Absolutely!” I felt stung as well as surprised. When we talked about what it had been like going from spending 12 hours a day apart during the work week to 12 hours a day in close proximity--along with having our son home completing his senior year of college upstairs in his bedroom rather than on campus--I was able to more fully appreciate just how much of an adjustment it had been for each of us.
How did you get started?
Early last year, I went from spending about 10% of my work time doing clinical work to 100% of my time either doing therapy myself or directing or supervising others doing therapy. For many years, I worked in management full-time while maintaining a small private practice. Although I had had a lot of training in addition to my clinical doctorate and enjoyed seeing patients much more than anything else I was doing professionally, having a job that afforded a steady income as well as the opportunity to be home most nights for dinner with my wife and children seemed like the way to go for many years. Even as we got closer to being empty nesters, it seemed it was too late to shift gears and get back to immersing myself in the fascinating as well as challenging world of people and their problems. I will be forever grateful to my wife--who encouraged me to believe in myself at a time when I had more than a few doubts--for getting me to the point where I could take a leap of faith. I jumped back in all the way.
What inspired the work that you're doing?
In addition to being inspired by mentors and colleagues who have shown me how powerful listening with a trained and experienced ear can be, I have found myself increasingly inspired by the many patients with whom I have worked who have used the opportunity to be heard to gain the insight and find the strength they need to change their lives for the better. This is especially so at this time when the difficulty of the challenges one faces are compounded by the pandemic. It is indeed, as far as connecting with others is concerned, a matter of “love in the time of COVID.”
What is your biggest passion? Do you feel like you're living your passion and purpose?
In many ways, we are--ourselves as helping professionals as well as those we are helping-- all in the same boat and all have work to do. It may sound strange to say, however, I have found that I have developed a passion for something that, understandably, we consider mundane--finding routines. Perhaps, we can call them healthy routines and that sounds better…yet we are still talking about doing little things that make a difference in the quality of one’s life. There is no immediate huge impact when we develop better routines, however, as a mental health professional seeing someone on a regular basis--and now seeing them in their home environment--we can see the decline in one’s mind, body, and spirit when one does not get up early enough to have some time to himself or herself before that important conference call that starts their work day, or engage in regular physical activity and exercise, or does not limit doomscrolling, or make time to read that novel that he or she has been dying to read but never seem to get to. We need to remain passionate about the many aspects of self-care that are enhanced through the development of healthy routines for mind, body, and soul. For most of us, there are at least one or two seemingly little things that we can do to take the edge off and feel more alive in ways that we want to feel alive.
What is your joy blueprint? What lights you up, brings you joy, and makes you feel the most alive?
Of course, there is this matter as well of the physical and emotional depletion that one can experience when one attempts to make himself or herself present at all times for others currently in our lives--or for those who may be on the verge of entering our lives (new clients). Family members can “burn out.” Caregivers can burn out. Therapists, too, can burn out. During this time, when there is an especially high demand for what we as therapists do, we can find ourselves taking on too many new clients, working much longer hours than usual, ignoring our limits. I have needed to remind myself that I am not the only good therapist out there, that I am not the only one who can help someone who seems especially complicated emotionally, that there may in fact be someone much better equipped to handle a particular clinical situation than I am.
How do you live intentionally? Are there tools/resources/practices that you rely on to help you stay mindful and grounded?
Clinical work can be deeply fulfilling and rewarding. We find ourselves able to help our clients find pathways to greater calm, better connections with others, accomplishment on a personal as well as professional level, and genuine happiness. Nonetheless, listening empathically to people who are in pain compels one to absorb a good deal of anquish, sadness, despair, anger, and other difficult emotions for extended periods of time. Lightening the psychic load is crucial. Separating oneself at times from the therapeutic discourse is often the first step to feeling unburdened. In addition to having different types of encounters with people who are important to me and that enliven me, I find great joy as well in periods of solitude. Building things and gardening are too of the places that provide me with a kind of solitude that allows me to use different parts of my brain and my body. When I am alone and using power tools or planting a shrub, I am absorbed in a very different way than I am when I am with others. I also do not need to be operating at a professional level when I am doing these things. The well-made yet simple table that I am able to construct provides me with a great deal of pleasure. Being able to dig in the dirt is at the heart of my enjoyment of gardening. I do not simply wait for the time to develop to pursue these activities. I make sure that I carve out the time to do these things.
What would your younger self think about what you're doing now?
My younger self has needed time to adjust to fully appreciate what I am doing now. He has needed to hear how I got here and why it took as long as it has taken to feel actualized. In a way that is very similar to what I do with many of my clients, I have had to go back to times in which I regretted how I conducted myself to come to terms with my regrets. Instead of simply disliking myself, for example, for not being more aggressive in a professional situation or when playing a sport, I have learned to tame my self-criticism and disapproval by looking realistically at what I was capable of at the time. My younger self is now able to see that I am in quite a good place, that what I am doing with my life fits me really well.
Do you have a go-to mantra or affirmation?
When I am about to do something challenging, such as begin a long day of appointments with clients, I tell myself to slow down, to focus totally on the person I am with and help him or her tell her story. It reminds me that when I really listen carefully to someone that the right thing to say and to do becomes apparent before too long. Lastly, I remind myself how often I have done this and how satisfied I feel eventually by the end of the day.
What is your biggest dream?
As much as I would like things to come easily--that I will be able to continue to be successful and to eventually coast as a result of all the hard work that I done--I have a different dream that that of never-ending talent and good fortune. I would like to maintain faith in myself as someone who is prepared to deal well with the inevitable difficulties that arise in life. I have felt otherwise and dream that I won’t ever feel that way again for an extended period of time.
To learn more about Gil and his work visit the NYC Counseling website www.nyccounseling.com on Psychology Today here and on LinkedIn here
Joy Corner is an interview-style blog series brought to you by Seek The Joy Podcast. Our mission continues to be a desire to share your stories, truths, joys and inspiration in your words. We invite you to join our corner, and share your joys, passions, and moments of inspiration as we continue to seek the joy, together. Join this series here