Later life brings its own set of changes, and many of them arrive at once: retirement, the loss of a spouse or friends, a body that needs more attention, adult children with lives of their own, and sometimes the role of caring for someone else. Depression and anxiety in older adults are common and often go unrecognized, because they can look like tiredness, pain, irritability, or simply withdrawing. Our therapists work with older adults in person in Brooklyn and by telehealth across New York, at a pace and in a style that respects a lifetime of experience. We are in-network with Medicare.
This may be a good fit if you experience…
- ✓Low mood, loss of interest, or anxiety that has crept in over months or years
- ✓Grief after the death of a spouse, sibling, or close friends
- ✓Retirement, or a loss of role and routine that has left the days feeling empty
- ✓A chronic illness, pain, or a diagnosis that has changed how you live
- ✓The strain of caring for a spouse or partner, or of being cared for
- ✓Loneliness, or distance from family and community
- ✓Worry about memory or thinking, and what it might mean
Key benefits
Care That Respects Your Experience
You bring seventy or eighty years of life to the room. Therapy builds on that, rather than treating you as a set of symptoms.
Depression and Anxiety Taken Seriously
Low mood in later life is not a normal part of aging, and it responds to treatment. We assess carefully and treat it as the medical condition it is.
Grief with Room to Breathe
Losses accumulate in later life. We make space for grief without rushing it, and help you carry it alongside what is still here.
Coordinated with Your Doctors
With your permission we coordinate with your primary care physician, geriatrician, or specialists, so mood, medication, sleep, and pain are looked at together.
Easy to Get To
Telehealth from home, in-person sessions at our Brooklyn office, and appointments planned around mobility, energy, and transportation.
Medicare Accepted
We are in-network with Original Medicare and many Medicare Advantage plans, and we confirm your coverage before your first session.
Approaches we use
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
Adapted for later life: practical work on the thoughts and habits that keep depression and anxiety going, with a focus on activity, sleep, and daily structure.
Interpersonal and Grief-Focused Therapy
For role transitions, bereavement, and relationships that have changed, including the shift from caring for others to accepting care.
Life Review and Meaning-Centered Work
Looking back across a life to make sense of it, settle what is unfinished, and decide what matters for the years ahead.
Supportive Therapy for Illness and Caregiving
Steady, ongoing support through a health condition, a partner’s decline, or the long work of caregiving, with attention to burnout and practical problem-solving.
How we work
- 1
Assessment First
The first sessions look carefully at mood, sleep, health, medications, losses, and support, so that what we treat is what is actually going on.
- 2
Your Pace, Your Terms
Sessions are unhurried and practical. You decide what to talk about and how much, and your therapist adjusts the approach as you go.
- 3
Connected Care
We work alongside your physicians and, when you want, your family, and we refer for memory or neuropsychological evaluation when that would help.
Our approach at Crown Counseling
Older adults are underserved in mental health care, and often the last to ask for it. Many grew up in a time when therapy was not something one did, and many have been told, or have told themselves, that feeling low is simply what getting older is like. It is not. Depression and anxiety in later life respond to treatment, and grief, however heavy, can be carried with support rather than alone.
Our work with older adults begins with a careful assessment, because mood in later life is tangled up with health: thyroid and vitamin levels, pain, sleep, medications, and the early signs of memory change can all look like depression or anxiety, or sit alongside them. With your permission, we coordinate with your primary care physician or geriatrician so that nothing is treated in isolation. Where a memory concern needs a proper evaluation, we refer for neuropsychological testing and continue to support you through it.
From there, the therapy itself is practical and respectful of a lifetime of experience. Cognitive behavioral approaches adapted for later life help with mood, worry, and the daily structure that retirement or illness can erode. Interpersonal and grief-focused work helps with bereavement and with the changing roles that come with age: the end of a career, adult children who need you differently, caring for a spouse or being cared for. Life review and meaning-centered work makes room for looking back across a life and deciding what matters now.
Practically, we make therapy easy to reach. Telehealth from home works well for many older adults, and our Brooklyn office is available for those who prefer to come in. We are in-network with Medicare, and our care coordinator confirms coverage before the first session. Family members are welcome in the process when you want them there, and never when you do not.
What to expect
- 1
Intake call: your concerns, insurance (including Medicare), and how you prefer to meet
- 2
First sessions: a careful look at mood, health, sleep, medications, losses, and support
- 3
Coordination with your physician, with your permission
- 4
Weekly or bi-weekly 50-minute sessions, in person or by telehealth
- 5
Regular check-ins on how things are going and whether the approach still fits
