Laura Gauer Bermudez, LMSW, Ph.D. is a psychotherapist that specializes in working with adolescents and adults.  She assists individuals to identify techniques to build confidence during life transitions and to meet goals for a more resilient and fulfilling journey ahead. She specializes in life transitions, anxiety, depression, trauma, body image, emerging adulthood, grief, and stress management.   She employs CBT, DBT, ACT, mindfulness, solution-focused therapy, and other techniques as relevant to an individual client.  As a parent of and sibling to individuals on the Autism Spectrum, Laura also works with families to better understand and support loved ones with this form of neurodiversity.

Using an integrative and holistic approach, Laura focuses heavily on the therapeutic relationship to foster growth and reflection.  She seeks to deeply understand her clients – their experiences, their environment, their habits, their strengths, and their challenges – to help equip them with the tools they need to achieve the growth they seek.

Laura’s background includes experience in human rights and humanitarian assistance.  Her therapeutic process is both trauma-informed and globally-oriented, drawing upon the similarities that bind the adolescent and young adult experience across cultures and communities – a desire for meaning, mastery, purpose, belonging, and hope.  Laura believes self-esteem and self-efficacy in emerging adulthood is not only fundamental to personal well-being but is also the foundation for more just and equitable societies.

She holds a Master’s Degree in Social Work from Washington University in St. Louis, a Master’s Degree in International Public Policy from Johns Hopkins University, and a Ph.D. in Social Work from Columbia University.  She is a Licensed Masters Social Worker in New York State.  She holds certifications in grief/loss and Autism Spectrum.