Damaris Santiago-Singer, LMHC, is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor in New York City. Damaris brings her rich experience to Healthy Minds NYC as she helps individuals grow in their strengths and explore ways to live a life congruent with their values and goals. Through our convenient virtual teletherapy services, Damaris excels at fostering a therapeutic relationship with adults encountering loss and grief, and those experiencing anxiety, depression, stress, life changes, and struggling with a sense of belonging, among other mental health concerns. She specializes in grief counseling and is a pet loss grief counseling trained professional. She also holds special interest in areas such as adjustment to chronic illness, career unease, barriers to artistic expression, compassion fatigue, challenges of first-responders and healthcare workers, and dating and relational difficulties that veer you away from living an optimized life.

WHAT IT’S LIKE WORKING WITH DAMARIS SANTIAGO-SINGER
Damaris has an integrative approach to care, focusing on creating a warm, person-centered, and inviting environment for all clients. She primarily utilizes methods from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, Positive Psychology, Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy, and Solution-Focused Therapy. She takes a holistic approach to care that respects the interplay between mental health and other factors such as nutrition, physical activity, hydration, rest, fresh air and sunshine, and temperance in her work with high performing New Yorkers. She also values the role of faith, gratitude, and service in building up one’s internal reservoir for confronting the challenges of our present time. Other approaches incorporated in Damaris’ style of practice include screenings, bibliotherapy, and psychoeducation on diverse mental health treatments and resources.

A LIFETIME OF SERVICE
Prior to joining Healthy Minds NYC, Damaris worked in private practice and community mental health in New York City and Westchester. She has served as a Chaplain Assistant in the United States Airforce, co-facilitated couples’ workshops, and engaged in several medical humanitarian missions. Damaris also served as a volunteer child group facilitator, and later as a group counselor, with the Bereavement Center of Westchester. She is a graduate of Yeshiva University’s Ferkauf Graduate School of Psychology and holds a second master’s degree in forensic psychology. She is a member of the Sjogren’s foundnation and former member of the Veteran’s Mental Health Coalition of NYC. She enjoys trying out healthy recipes, gardening and nature, and does her best (not always successfully) to stay away from poison ivy. Damaris lives with her spouse and rescue pet, Zora.

READY TO SERVE A DIVERSE COMMUNITY
Damaris is fluent in both English and Spanish.