Stephanie Cold (She/Her/Hers)

I specialize in working with clients who come from dysfunctional family systems. The experiences that we have in our early life influence and inform who we become as adults. It is the foundation on which we build our home.However, when we are young we have no control over our environment and we develop mechanisms for surviving difficult environments. However, those mechanisms that once helped us survive may no longer serve us in our adult life. In fact, those mechanisms may be holding us back.

Relationships can be incredibly nurturing and joyful experiences that give life meaning. However, relationships can also be unhealthy and even harmful. We may find ourselves experiencing patterns of instability in relationships or in dynamics that consistently seem to adversely impact our sense of self worth. Therapy can help us identify our relationship patterns, understand how those patterns came to be, and begin to disrupt those patterns and create new ones.

My sex therapy work, at its core, is about helping people develop a healthy relationship with their own sexuality. That may look very different from person to person. I work with folks who are struggling with sexual functioning or chronic pain such as vaginismus, desire discrepancies with partners, out of control sexual behavior, recovery from sexual trauma, and folks experiencing shame around their sexuality. I am a sex positive therapist who is kink, ENM, and sex worker affirming.

In our work together, I want to hold space not only for your personal experiences, but also for the cultural, social, and political forces that may have shaped them. In Feminist Therapy, we understand that your emotional life doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It’s deeply influenced by systems like patriarchy, racism, capitalism, ableism, and more—systems that often go unnamed in traditional therapy but can have a very real impact on your mental health.

IFS invites you into a compassionate and curious relationship with the different parts of yourself. In Internal Family Systems therapy, or IFS, we understand the mind as naturally made up of sub-personalities or 'parts'—each with its own feelings, thoughts, and roles. These parts aren’t pathological; they developed for good reasons, often to help you survive or cope. And our goal isn't to get rid of them, but to help them feel safe enough to relax. IFS teaches us that there are no bad parts.

Psychodynamic therapy is about understanding your inner world—not just what you’re struggling with on the surface, but also what might be happening underneath. In psychodynamic therapy, we’re interested in how your past experiences, especially early relationships, may be shaping the way you think, feel, and relate to others today—even if you're not consciously aware of it. Psychodynamic therapy helps you build conscious awareness about your unconscious processes.