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FRIEND THERAPY

Friend therapy  — because some of your most important relationships aren’t romantic​

Friendships can be the most sustaining, complicated, and grief-laden relationships in a person’s life. They can also be the hardest ones to get support around — because therapy has historically been organized around romantic partnerships, family systems, and individual struggle. The relationships between friends, chosen family members, and platonic partners rarely get a room of their own. 

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At Express Yourself Therapy, they do. We believe platonic and chosen family relationships deserve the same care, attention, and intention as romantic or biological family relationships. That's why we offer therapy for friendships, chosen families, and other meaningful platonic connections—because for many people, especially within LGBTQIA+ communities, friends are family.​ Whether you're navigating conflict, strengthening communication, repairing trust, redefining roles, or transitioning from romantic partners to friends, we provide a space to explore these relationships with care. We can also help you establish and maintain healthy boundaries that support a sustainable, respectful friendship. The relationships you choose to build and invest in deserve support, too.

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In person in Manhattan or virtually across New York State. All relationship structures welcome.

WHAT WE HELP WITH

  • Conflict that keeps cycling without resolution

  • Processing the grief of a friendship that ended — by choice, by death, or by drift​

  • Friendships that are changing because of a major life transition (partnership, kids, coming out, relocation)

  • Navigating the transition from romantic partners to friends

  • Boundaries in friendships — how to set them, how to hold them, how to ask for them

  • Feeling like you’re always the one who gives more — imbalance and resentment

  • Chosen family dynamics — roles, expectations, conflict, and care

  • Navigating friendships across difference — race, class, politics, religion, relationship structure

  • Queerplatonic relationships and the challenges of existing without social scripts

  • Friendship and neurodivergence — social exhaustion, masking, and connection

HOW IT WORKS

Friend therapy sessions can be one-on-one — one person coming in to process a friendship or chosen family relationship — or they can include multiple friends or chosen family members in the room together. We’ll talk about the best format on your free consultation call.

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For sessions that include multiple people, we work similarly to the way we approach polycule or chosen family therapy: we hold space for everyone present without taking sides, help slow down the dynamics that keep people stuck, and focus on what each person is actually trying to say beneath the conflict or distance.

For more info, see our F.A.Q's page.

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