 |
Name: Dr. Cynthia Mayer
Profession: Clinical Psychologist
License Number: New York State License # 007625-1
Location: Manhattan, New York City
Education
Ph.D. 1982, Yeshiva University
Externship program, Ackerman Institute for Family Therapy
Certificate in Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy, Greenwich Institute for Psychoanalytic
Studies
Advanced training in Ericksonian Hypnotherapy
|
|
Professional experience
1979 – present: Private Practice of psychotherapy in NYC and Westport, CT Individual, couples, family therapy, & group therapy
1997 – present: Clinical Psychologist, The Family Center, Stamford, CT
Family and couples therapy, Individual therapy with adults and adolescents
Critical incident debriefing group leader
Workshop leader on topics of family interest
1995 – 97: Teacher, Wilton, CT & Westport, CT Continuing Education
1976 – 1982: Psychotherapist and Supervisor, Fifth Avenue Center for
Counseling and Psychotherapy
1976 – 1977: Trainer and Program developer: The Training Institute
New York State Office of Drug Abuse Services
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Practice information
I work privately with individuals (adults and adolescents), couples and families.
|
|
Personal relationship status
I have been married since 1984 and have one son, age 17.
|
|
Love-Life biography
My love-life biography is inextricably intertwined with the social history of the seventies and eighties. My early twenties were a time of personal adventure. After a relatively inactive high school love-life and a college experience of “first love,” I entered an era, personally and historically, in which it was cool to be single. The hip “singles scene” was converging with consciousness raising and women’s liberation, and I went from feeling that I was “always a bridesmaid,” at my friends’ weddings to embracing and enjoying my personal and sexual freedom. I felt free, liberated from my parents’ mores and expectations, and certain that I was fortunate to escape the confines of traditional marriage.
As time went by, however, these short relationships began to pale and I started to feel lonely. I entered psychotherapy ostensibly as “part of my professional training,” but really to answer some questions I was having regarding certain dating patterns and what I discovered to be an unhealthy attachment to my family. As I understood and worked through these developmental tasks in therapy, I moved across the river (to Brooklyn!) and soon after met and moved in with the man who would be my husband.
We lived together for seven years. Though we felt and acted “married,” we both consciously avoided legalizing our union, reflecting a shared idea that our relationship would be “invaded” by our families of origin, literally and as a toxic concept. Although the shape of my family of origin was very different than that of my partner (my parents had a long and quietly unhappy marriage and my partner’s parents were divorced when he was young, leaving him alone with his mother) we both felt responsible for our parents’ happiness, were unable to refuse any of their requests, and in hindsight, remained insufficiently individuated despite appearances of independence. We imagined our non-traditional status to be the only thing keeping our families and our negative ideas of marriage at bay.
As I neared 35 I wanted to have a baby. What followed was the hardest time in the relationship that for six years had been mostly happy and harmonious, full of domestic pleasures and travel adventures. My partner balked, was terrified at the prospect of replicating his own childhood, was fearful of losing me, and basically said no. We fought and cried. Finally we entered therapy together and in a short time I was able to deliver the ultimatum which was a giant step on my road to personal autonomy: either we have a baby or separate. It was only after my husband agreed to start a family that I could experience all the terror of impending change that had been his provenance.
My story has a happy ending, unlike that of many couples who put off starting families in that era which was on the fault-line of a seismic shift in ideas about women and marriage. We did get married, and I had two miracles: my son and my husband’s instant attachment to our baby.
|
|