Our Staff Information

At Midtown Marriage and Family Therapy, PC, we provide in-depth relational therapy for a diverse population of clients including individuals, couples, and families. We heal within relationship and our therapists understand deeply the importance of this awareness. They provide for our clients from within their varying specialties and modalities. We aim to provide diverse and affordable services to the community we serve. Our mission is to grow organically as a richly layered and vital community of skilled therapists.

Our Clinical Community is centered on a commitment to the professional and personal development of all of its members. A shared vision connects the diversity within our community and encourages the unique voice of each therapist to emerge in her/his work. Our community is founded on the belief in the healing potential of the therapeutic relationship and the importance of providing a safe, sacred, and contained space for our clients. It is nurtured by our support of each other and our dedication to continued training, supervision and peer interaction.

Our Clinical Model is based in contemporary psychodynamic, transpersonal, and systemic models of psychology. We have a humanistic and holistic approach that listens to and tends to the minds, bodies, and souls of our clients. We work with clients to move through defense structures and into self expression for the purpose of healing their suffering. Many of us no longer need the walls we built to protect ourselves but would never risk taking them down alone.

Ellen M. Gregory, M.A., LMFT, is the Founder, President, and Practice Director of Midtown Marriage and Family Therapy, PC.

Ellen is a New York State Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (#000226), a Clinical Member of the American Association of Marriage and Family Therapy (AAMFT) and an AAMFT Approved Supervisor Candidate, working under the supervision of Robert Sherman, Ph.D.

Ellen received a Bachelor of Science degree in both Psychology and the Administration of Justice, from the University of Pittsburgh. Ellen later received a Masters Degree, with distinction, in Marriage and Family Therapy, from Hofstra University.

Ellen's theoretical approach is an integration of psychodynamic, humanistic, holistic, and systemic theories. Through long-term, in-depth psychotherapy, Ellen creates safety within the room so couples can drop their defense structures and protections, and emotionally open themselves up to each other. Ellen creates shared experiences where they are able to speak vulnerably about what they feel and listen to the other, and validate the others’ experience, while working through their own emotional response as a result.

Restored connection comes from accepting each other’s experiences and healing the emotional wounds that have prevented them from truly hearing each other. Once clients can connect in this way, they use their own inherent strengths to make the changes they need. They become compassionate and responsive to the other.

In working with individuals, Ellen uses the same approach and framework so clients can clearly see through their defenses and find their lost ‘self’. By creating a safe space for clients to process their history and heal their wounds, they discover who they are, and use their own strengths to ‘appear’ in relationships.

Ellen's area of specialization and focus...
Ellen has focused the majority of her clinical career treating anger. Ellen works with individuals, couples, families, and groups, to break the destructive, reactionary patterns of anger, to provide relief, and a new direction towards growth and change. Ellen shows her clients effective ways to voice their needs and wants, how to heal from past pain, and how to gain emotional self-control.

In addition to psychotherapy services, Ellen has created Project SOAR, an anger management program for adolescents, implemented in school districts.

Call us at 917-968-5599 for more information. Ellen also provides supervision and training for professionals seeking greater ability to help their clients work through anger.

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Elena Hull, MA, LMFT, CAT
Elena is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist in the State of New York, a Licensed Creative Arts Therapist, and a Clinical Member of the American Association of Marriage and Family Therapy.

At Midtown MFT, Elena holds the position Clinical Director.

Elena graduated Magna cum Laude with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Studio Art and Art History from the Honors program at Boston College and later achieved her Masters Degree in Counseling Psychology with a concentration in Expressive Arts Therapy from the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco.

Elena’s personal and professional paths have led her to combine creativity and healing towards a life well lived. Elena offers individual in-depth psychotherapy, couples therapy, brief solution-focused therapy, and group therapy at Midtown MFT. Elena comes to us with extensive training in the healing arts and works with deep appreciation for the rare opportunity the therapeutic relationship offers clients to revision and enhance their lives.

Elena’s clinical approach is engaged, creative, practical, and compassionate. She acknowledges self-expression as a tremendous resource for healing, understanding that it offers us a place beyond anxiety and depression. Elena considers therapy an experience of reunion: reunion with our whole selves, our latent possibilities, our bodies, our intuition, and our purpose within community. She has experience counseling individuals, and couples through life transitions, repetition in relationship, trauma recovery (specifically sexual assault and abuse), anger, depression, and anxiety. Her directive approach is guided by the goals of personal transformation, self-awareness, spiritual connection, empowerment, and living a deeply fulfilling life.

She currently provides in-depth psychotherapy to individuals and couples at Midtown MFT, and in her private practice located in Greenwich Village, New York.

Elena's Focus - Sexual Abuse and Assault Recovery
Elena keeps artistic expression a part of her life through painting and writing. As a Creative Arts Therapist, Elena combines her passion for creative expression with her therapeutic work, creating a safe space for deep healing and recovery of sexual abuse and assault.

Elena has shown her dedication to surviviors, working with The Joyful Heart Foundation, facilitating retreats for sexual assault and abuse survivors in New York and Hawaii. The foundation, in association with world-renowned rape crisis centers, takes groups to Kona, Hawaii to experience the therapeutic and healing experience of swimming with dolphins, and engaging in art, writing, and movement.

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Linda is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist in the State of New York, and a Clinical Member of the American Association of Marriage and Family Therapy.

Linda brings a multifaceted background to her therapeutic work. She holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Forensic Science from the University of New Haven (Connecticut) and experienced eighteen years working in three east coast crime laboratories in the disciplines of serology, DNA, and microanalysis.

Linda had the opportunity to be extensively involved in the TWA Flight 800 disaster (Long Island, 1996), This proved to be a transforming experience for her leading to her resignation from the field of forensic science to pursue a career with direct involvement with people and the life situations they are confronted with.

Since her crime lab days, Linda has received a Master of Arts degree in Marriage and Family Therapy, from Hofstra University, has experienced working in a school based tobacco education program and with families across the family life cycle as the Assistant Director in the Office of Laity and Family for the RC Diocese of Rockville Centre.

With her diverse background, and lifelong passion of helping others, Linda has the talent and dedication to work with individuals, couples, and families - particularly families dealing with adolescent issues. She encourages clients to openly share their life stories. She helps them uncover their feelings and emotions, and then integrates them into everyday experiences. She journeys with every client as they are stretched to develop the courage, curiosity, and awareness of their unlived possibilities helping them to discover the hidden and mysterious potentiality within, moving to self-discovery and healing.

Linda's focus - Adolescents and Family Systems Work
Linda's passion for healing the family unfolds in her work with adolescents in individual, and family therapy.

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Brooke, originally from the Midwest, graduated from the University of Wisconsin – Madison, with an honor’s degree in Women’s Studies and Political Philosophy, and later received her doctoral degree in Clinical Psychology from the California Institute of Integral Studies.



Brooke is a Licensed Clinical Psychologist and holds a certification in psychoanalytic psychotherapy from the Manhattan Institute for Psychoanalysis. Brooke is a member of APSAA (American Psychoanalytic Association), ICSPP (International Center for the Study of Psychiatry and Psychology) and ISPS (International Society for the Psychological Treatments of the Schizophrenias and other Psychoses).

Brooke has been trained in a psychodynamic understanding of psychology, as influenced early on by Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung, and later by a more modern and interpersonal understanding of the therapeutic encounter. Brooke finds that it is in our relationships with others where the various conscious and unconscious mental or emotional processes arise in their most fascinating and stubborn patterns; thus, therapy offers a relational space for the patient to explore these dynamics.


An admirer of literature and poetry, Brooke understands the psyche’s use of the symbolic and metaphor as an essential way to explain oneself and thus is attentive to working with patients’ dreams. Brooke is also influenced by her study of Buddhism, holding an understanding of each individual’s inherent sense of freedom.


Brooke works with individuals, couples, families, and groups treating anxiety, depression, phobias, communication difficulties, trauma recovery, infidelity, power struggles, and more.


Brooke's Area of Focus - Trauma Recovery
One of Brooke’s specializations is the treatment of individuals who have experienced trauma due to domestic violence, sexual abuse and assault, and military war exposure.

For Post-War recovery, Brooke treats individuals returning from Operation Iraqi Freedom, as well as all wars and all generations of individuals who have been exposed to a wide variety of war-zone related stressors that can impact psychological functioning in a number of ways. Pre-deployment training, military-related experiences, and post-deployment environment all have an impact on an individual’s emotional world, for which psychotherapy can be of great benefit.

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Melissa joined the team at Midtown MFT in May of 2006. Melissa received her Master of Arts Degree in Marriage and Family Therapy from Hofstra University, Long Island, New York, where she focused on biological and evolutionary aspects of families and relationships, domestic violence, and alternative family lifestyles.

Melissa is an adjunct faculty member at Hunter College. There she instructs students on Family Systems and Counseling Issues for the Department of Educational Foundations and Counseling Programs. Melissa has also led various workshops: Harnessing the Positive, Chemical Dependence: Diagnosing and Assessing Your Clients’ Needs, Chemical Dependence and Family Therapy: Seeing the Family as the Client, and Assess Marriage and Family Therapy Competence.

Currently, she is preparing to hold a series of lectures for up and coming therapists; Becoming Licensed in Marriage and Family Therapy.

Melissa is active in the advancement of her professional field, having written the following articles: Job Hunting Tips as a Marriage and Family Therapist, and Specific Aspects on Becoming Licensed, for the New York Association for Marriage and Family Therapists (NYAMFT). Melissa has also preformed a study, in conjunction with the NYAMFT, entitled 'Experience Opportunities for Marriage and Family Therapists' and 'The Marriage Check-up.' Melissa was elected by her professional peers to sit on the New York State Division Board of the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy.

Often described as an advocate, Melissa applies her knowledge of social sciences, biology, and evolution to question societal views that encourage inequality. She recognizes how these social constructs affect both individual self-worth and relationship dynamics. She employs psychoeducation to review these cultural aspects and help reduce the powerful role they play in our lives.

Melissa’s clinical approach is integrative, combining multi-generational, structural, and solution-focused theories. She recognizes the unique qualities each individual possesses and believes in complimenting them with an appropriate clinical approach. Through open dialogue and active listening, Melissa nurtures an environment for constructive change.

Melissa's Area of Focus...
Melissa specializes in working with individuals, couples, and families as they relate to systemic therapy. Having worked with victims of hate crimes, sexual assault, and domestic violence, she focuses on power dynamics as they arise in relationships and society. For individuals who have suffered trauma, she offers a safe place where they can speak openly and are empowered.

Melissa also works with individuals, couples and families who challenge cultural traditions by providing a comfortable and unbiased place where they can speak freely about their alternative life choices.

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Rachel has a Master’s degree in Marriage and Family Therapy from Antioch New England Graduate School and an M.A. in Spiritual Psychology from the University of Santa Monica, and is an associate member of the American Association of Marriage and Family Therapy (AAMFT).

Rachel’s passion in the last several years has been learning, teaching and working with people using Nonviolent Communication (NVC) or Compassionate Communication as it is sometimes called, a modality founded by Marshall Rosenberg, which focuses on understanding feelings and needs through connecting with what is most alive in ourselves and others. She completed the BayNVC year long Leadership Program in NVC in 2006 and was an Assistant Trainer in the Program in 2007. She is a board member of Brooklyn Nonviolent Communication. In using NVC with her clients, Rachel offers tools which allow clients to resolve issues on their own.

Rachel is also currently in a certificate program in Somatic Experiencing (SE) based on the work of Peter Levine. SE focuses on healing trauma through body awareness. Her interest in this topic is both to have greater understanding and tools for working with people who experience trauma and to incorporate a more holistic approach to healing by having more awareness of the body’s process as we experience pain and change.

In her theoretical approach, Rachel incorporates NVC, empathy and somatic work to her training in family systems and solution-focused therapies. With an emphasis on being a collaborator in the client’s process, she supports them in feeling more self empowered individually, as well as facilitating their ability to feel seen, understood and connected.

Rachel works with clients in identifying and changing the stories that are no longer serving them, so that they can shift from places where they are feeling stuck to having a sense of more freedom and choice.

Rachel’s primary focus is assisting people in hearing and understanding one another, as well as acknowledging and attending to each other’s needs. She assists individual clients in connecting with deep pain, allowing for understanding, integration and healing with self and others.

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Ami is in the process of earning her M.S. in MFT at Iona College. Ami earned her first Master’s degree in Public Heath from Emory University and has been working in the field of HIV/AIDS for the past ten years. She earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in South Asian Languages and Cultures and Pre-med Studies from Columbia College.

In addition to her career in public health, Ami graduated from the One Spirit Interfaith Seminary in June of 2003 as an ordained Interfaith Minister. She is a member of the faculty at the seminary, offers spiritual counseling to individuals and couples, and performs wedding ceremonies.

As someone who grew up in America as part of a tight-knit Indian family, Ami is particularly sensitive to the pressures of juggling multiple and often conflicting roles and expectations. Ami is able to respectfully and skillfully explore and challenge with clients the role their family of origin has played in shaping their personalities and beliefs and continues to play in influencing their day-to-day decisions. In addition, as a result of her own personal experiences, she is keenly aware of the unique challenges facing intercultural and/or interfaith couples and families.

Given her multicultural background, professional experience in the HIV/AIDS field, and non-judgmental and warm nature, Ami is able to connect with others regardless of their age, gender, race, sexual orientation, culture, and/or life experiences. She has a genuine desire to help others improve the quality of their lives and is able to recognize and bring to light the best in others.

Ami’s counseling style is client-centered, empowering, and holistic and her approach is a combination of insight-oriented and solution-focused therapy with the goal of bringing about paradigm shifts and behavior change. She sees the client-therapist relationship as a partnership in which the therapist facilitates the therapeutic process by creating a safe space while the client guides the therapeutic process by mapping out and embarking on his/her own goals.


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Jacob is currently in the process of earning his Masters Degree in Marriage and Family Therapy at Mercy College. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology from Hunter College in 2006.


Before choosing psychology as a profession, Jacob spent a number of years pursuing a career in public relations and advertising. As a licensed stockbroker, he also has experience in finance. Years spent building a career in business have given him a keen understanding of the issues that business world professionals face in their daily lives and relationships.


As Jacob grew up in a close knit Jewish family, he understands the importance of establishing trust and effective communication between family members. Having personal experience with issues that an interfaith relationship between members of religious families can bring, he is sensitive and respectful of religious and cultural issues that families might be facing. Having lived on both East and West coasts and in a variety of communities, Jacob uses his experience with a variety of cultures and environments to create an eclectic approach to family therapy.


Jacob’s experience in psychotherapy encompasses working with a varied population of clients in individual, couple, and group work. Jacob sees his main strength in his ability to empower and inspire people to change their lives. His approach is holistic and client-centered, and it is aimed at achieving lasting results through solution-focused work. Using his experience as a Certified Personal Trainer, Jacob strongly believes in the mind-body connection and incorporates physical activity into his therapeutic approach.


Jacob’s Areas of Specialization and Focus
Jacob integrates a variety of motivational techniques into his approach in order to help couples work on their issues and achieve their ideal state of relationship. Jacob works with couples of diverse backgrounds who are willing to take an unconventional look at their relationship and to work to change their lives for the better.

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| PSYCHOTHERAPY | INDIVIDUAL | COUPLES | FAMILY | ANGER
| WOMANS' ANGER | MEN'S ANGER
| ONE DAY ANGER INTENSIVE | INTERFAITH / INTERCULTURAL