Joanna was born and raised a heavy New Yorker. Her love for NY sports knows no bounds. She received her Bachelor’s degree in Social Work as well as her Master’s degree in Social Work, at Florida International University. Joanna was a swimmer in college and learned the importance of maintaining a healthy balance between physical and emotional health. Joanna returned to New York, once graduating with her MSW and obtained her LMSW and later her LCSW.

From there, she went to work with youth and families in the foster care system at a Residential Treatment Center. Joanna worked with a facet of topics including mental illness, social justice, trauma, domestic violence, and economic hardships. During her time working in foster care, she practiced a lot of psychodynamic therapy, really finding this to be the foundational core of her work with youth and families. Joanna spent seven years working with the foster care population, truly recognizing the essential need to create space for every day mental health struggles. Joanna also earned her SIFI, supervising student interns.

Joanna continues to be interested in growing her social work education to challenge and expand her psychotherapeutic self. Joanna takes a special interest in working with athletes. Having grown up in a world where sports represented more than just a past time to her, she understands how being an athlete can often be tied to one’s identity, accompanied by a complexity of mental health issues and intensive performance pressures. Her clinical interest also includes Depression, Anxiety, and OCD. That all being said, to Joanna, the ideal client, is the client who walks into the office.

Joanna loves being in NY, as she feels it offers a range of cultures, ethinicies, and ages. She supports the annual NAMI walk yearly with her family as well as the annual psoriasis walk (a cause close to her heart due to her own struggle with this autoimmune disorder). Joanna is a big believer in self-care. To her, there is no wrong way to self-care, but she finds it important to get lots of love from her bulldogs and watch sports events to utilize her energetic voice!