Ida Hammer, LCSW
Compassion-Minded Therapy
New York
About Me
Ida Hammer (she/her)
I am server transgender, gender nonbinary, women, and LGBQ clients, as I understand the value in seeing a therapist with a shared identity.
A life-long feminist activist, I have worked to promote the rights and wellbeing of women, LGBQ, and TGNB people. I know first hand that being a social justice advocate is hard work that can take a toll. It was my own experience as an community journalist and organizer that led me to becoming a therapist.
For me, pursuing an education in clinical social work meant developing new knowledge and skills that I could use to further my social justice and anti-oppressive work. I received my MSW from Hunter College in 2014.
I am a Licensed Clinical Social Worker providing online counseling to residents of New York.
My Approach
Science
I provide therapy rooted in and guided by the science of compassion. This includes looking to social, developmental and evolutionary psychology and neuroscience to help understand how the development of compassion-mindedness facilitates transformative changes.
Integration
I utilize a range of methods rooted in knowledge and wisdoms regarding individual and social causes and remedies of suffering to facilitate well-being and liberation. Attentional training, breathwork, mindfulness and imagery are combined with techniques from somatic, cognitive, behavioral, humanistic, narrative, eco and systems therapies.
Growth
I take a non-pathologizing approach that recognizes how struggles often labeled as “disorders” are actually adaptions to conditions that are not our fault. I place an emphasis on our ability to grow and change ourselves, as well as society. Transformative change emerges from the processes of developing compassion-mindedness.
Therapeutic Approach & Training
My practice is based on the Compassion Focused Therapy (CFT) model. I have received training in CFT from a number of experts in the field, including Post-Graduate education at the University of Derby in England. I have also received specific training in mindfulness, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Motivational Interviewing, Trauma-Informed Therapy and other techniques that I am able to draw on to help clients reach their goals in therapy.
Services
Individual Therapy
Weekly sessions (45 minutes)
$75 - $200 (progressive, income-based sliding scale)
TGNB Surgery Letters
Single evaluation appointment
$125 (suggested rate, pay-what-you-can)
