Experience and credentials matter, but they do not a good therapist make. As you search for someone to work with, I encourage you to listen to your own sense of the potential connection between you and the therapist. That connection is much more important than credentials, coursework, and licensures.

With that said, I have a doctoral degree (1988) in Counseling Psychology from the University of Connecticut, am Licensed in New York as a Mental Health Counselor (006354) and in Connecticut as a Professional Counselor (001419). I’m certified by the National Board of Certified Counselors.

In the first decade of my career I served as Associate Dean of Students, Minority Student Advisor, and International Student Advisor at a liberal arts college. I then moved to the independent school world where I served for 10 years as Academic Dean and then 6 more as Director of Counseling (teaching throughout). I shifted to a private practice in 2006. I’ve been on the faculty of the Stanley H. King Institute since 2001 and am currently its director, working with a fabulous team of practitioners. I’ve taught basic counseling skills at the Blackberry River Retreat (for independent school college counselors) since 2008.

I have extensive training in EMDR, IFS, grief work, cognitive-behavioral therapies, energy therapies, gestalt, positive psychology, and creativity in counseling. I’ve taken numerous courses on nutrition and its relationship to mental health, including classes provided by Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health, the Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine, the Institute for Integrative Nutrition, and other training providers.

I love my work and am committed to helping my clients develop their inner resources of courage, kindness, insight, humor, and resilience. The qualities of curiosity and wonder are core values for me, providing an endless source of delight and meaning. I’m committed to continually learning about mental health, mindfulness, nutrition, cultural differences/identity, creativity, existence itself — all things that undergird well-being and support our sense of meaning and belonging in the world.

I am a BRCA2-positive, breast cancer survivor/thriver, and live on a school campus where my spouse works in Dobbs Ferry, NY; we have three grown children.

If you are interested in working together, send me an email at paula@paulachu.com or call me at 860-677-1157.