Melissa Paretsky, Ph.D.
"The Greatest Glory Lies Not in Never Falling But in Rising Every Time we Fall" - Oliver Goldsmith
Welcome
Life inevitably includes setbacks. Therapy can help you rise from them with greater clarity, resilience, and meaning.
I work best with thoughtful, curious people — the kind who want to understand the patterns shaping their lives, not just manage them. Often that means OCD or intrusive thoughts that have taken up more room than you'd like, anxiety that won't quiet down, or the weight of a trauma that still echoes. Many of the people I see have tried to think their way out and found that insight alone isn't enough. In our work together, you'll gain practical, evidence-based tools and a deeper understanding of why these patterns took hold — so they loosen their grip rather than simply going underground.
My practice focuses on trauma, anxiety, and obsessive patterns, using evidence-based therapies including Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT), Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP), and Prolonged Exposure (PE). Alongside these, I bring meaning-centered and existential perspectives — because a diagnosis is most useful not as a label that defines you, but as a source of understanding that can support growth, resilience, and a life built around what you value.
I have advanced OCD and PTSD training through the University of Pennsylvania, and specialized experience working with medically and neurologically complex clients through the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. I also serve on the editorial board of Neurology.
At its core, therapy is about helping people move through life's hardest challenges with greater purpose and insight — and discovering that, as the words at the top of this page put it, our greatest glory lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.
Therapy Modalities
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy helps you stop fighting difficult thoughts and feelings and start building a life around what matters to you. Rather than trying to eliminate anxiety, we make room for it, loosen its hold, and free up your energy for the things you actually value.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy works from a simple premise: it is not events themselves but our interpretations of them that drive how we feel. Together we identify the thought patterns fueling distress, test them against the evidence, and build more accurate, flexible ways of thinking — with practical tools you can use long after our work ends.
Exposure and Response Prevention
Exposure and Response Prevention is the gold-standard treatment for OCD. Together we gradually face the thoughts and situations that trigger anxiety while resisting the rituals meant to neutralize it — and your brain learns, through experience rather than reassurance, that it can tolerate uncertainty. The discomfort fades; the freedom lasts.
Cognitive Processing Therapy
Cognitive Processing Therapy is an evidence-based treatment for PTSD. After a trauma, the mind often forms rigid beliefs — about safety, trust, or self-blame — that keep the pain alive. CPT helps you examine and revise those "stuck points," so the trauma becomes something that happened to you rather than something that defines you.
Prolonged Exposure Therapy
Prolonged Exposure is a highly effective treatment for PTSD. Avoiding trauma reminders brings short-term relief but keeps fear in charge. PE helps you approach those memories and situations gradually and safely, so they lose their power and you reclaim the parts of life that trauma narrowed.