Dr. Melayna Schiff, LCSW (she/her)
Psychotherapist · EMDR Provider · EFCT Trained · PhD in Philosophy ·
Licensed in Virginia
I offer a depth-oriented, trauma-focused approach to therapy for people seeking insight and meaningful change.
By integrating evidence-informed therapy with existential depth, authentic human presence, and a nuanced awareness of context, identity, and power, I support clients in moving beyond insight into ways of living that feel more connected, intentional, and aligned.
To learn more about me, click here.
Areas of Specialization
Relationships
Understanding your relational patterns, healing relational wounds, fostering deeper bonds, and building more intentional connections across a variety of relationship types and structures (e.g., ENM, RA, monogamy).
Trauma
Processing complex, relational, and single-incident trauma to make sense of the past, reconnect with your agency, and intentionally choose your path forward.
Anxiety and Fear
Reclaiming your energy and attention from the grip of chronic worry and vigilance by facing your fears, processing their root causes, and building the confidence to navigate life's uncertainties.
Identity and Meaning Exploration
Creating space for life's deeper existential questions—examining who you are, what matters to you, and how you want to live.
Internalized Expectations and Social Influences
Deconstructing the roles, scripts, and societal expectations you've inherited so you can author a life path that is authentically yours.
Who I Work With
I offer services to support adults with a diverse range of identities,
backgrounds, and lived experiences. My approach is grounded in a
systemic lens. This means I recognize that your internal world and
relational dynamics are deeply intertwined with things like your
gender, race, sexual and romantic orientations, cultural backgrounds,
and the power structures you navigate every day.
As part of this systemic approach, I offer specialized, informed care for
those who engage in ethical non-monogamy (ENM), relationship anarchy (RA),
and expansive relationship and sexual dynamics, including kink. Whether
your identities and relationship structures are a central focus of our work
or simply the context of your life, my goal is to provide a space safe enough
to explore your experiences as you chart your own course outside of society's
narrow romantic and sexual expectations.
How I Can Help
My goal is to help you reclaim agency over the issues you're navigating and move forward. This means working to find relief from these challenges while carefully uncovering and addressing their underlying causes. I work across the layers of your life—like your body, habits, emotions, thoughts, relationships, existential concerns, and social systems—to explore these underlying causes. Therapy can be both a vehicle for insight and a space of possibility where you build the awareness, practical skills, and confidence to foster connection and closeness, as well as to live a more authentic life.
A trauma-informed foundation shapes the pace and tone of the work we do together, enabling us to move toward what's difficult while being sensitive to what you're ready for.
As an integrative, client-centered therapist, I draw on a range of approaches as they become relevant, in pursuit of what will be most useful and resonant for you at any given point in our work together.
Psychodynamic Psychotherapy helps us explore how your past relationships and experiences have shaped who you are, with the goal of empowering you to intentionally author what comes next.
EMDR addresses unprocessed experiences that are keeping you stuck, using bilateral stimulation to help your brain finally process them so the past can lose its grip and you can move forward from the present.
EFT explores the underlying attachment needs driving relationship distress. By identifying negative cycles and accessing deeper vulnerable emotions, we work to cultivate closer and more secure bonds.
CBT helps us address the way your thoughts and behaviors are keeping you stuck in automatic cycles that fuel distress, so you can navigate daily life with greater clarity and agency.
An empowerment model aims at revealing the roles you were placed in before you had a say. By recognizing what's been imposed, you can identify and embody a more authentic way of living.
An existentially-oriented approach holds space for both the search for meaning and the anxiety that comes with releasing a life shaped by norms and expectations to live in line with your own values and desires.
My background shapes this work in a distinctive way.
I am a Licensed Clinical Social Worker with a PhD in philosophy. My specialized training in trauma and experience as a psychotherapist assist me in developing safe, trusting relationships and equip me to utilize an integrative, evidence-informed approach to therapy aimed at fostering meaningful change. At the same time, my background as a philosopher gives me the depth and tolerance for complexity to accompany you through the layered challenges of existence—like love, identity, meaning, agency, freedom, responsibility, flourishing, and death. Together, these strengths position me to meet you in the fullness of your hopes and struggles, and to walk alongside you with steadiness and care as you navigate life's most meaningful and challenging moments.
I offer traditional standing sessions, extended sessions, and therapy intensives. Together, we'll find the format that serves you best.
If this resonates, the next step is simple.
If you are looking for a space to explore your experience more deeply and work toward meaningful change, contact us to schedule an appointment today!