Brian Ackerman, LMSW

Psychotherapist

Brian Ackerman, LMSW

Brian (he/him) holds a master’s degree in Clinical Social Work from NYU. Brian identifies as a gay/queer man and specializes in psychotherapy relating to sexuality, attachment, and trauma. He has training in affirming care around gender and sexuality, psychodynamic psychotherapy, Safety and Attachment Focused Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (SAFE EMDR), Emotion Focused Therapy for couples, and is a fellow in the couple’s therapy program at the Training Institute for Mental Health

Before becoming a therapist, Brian served as a lobbyist advocating for sexual and reproductive health for adolescents and young people in countries receiving U.S. foreign aid and later worked in management consulting, publishing, and community mental health. Having worked in larger social justice movements, Brian sees psychotherapy as an integral part of building a more just society, as it supports individuals and relationships in developing the self-understanding and compassion necessary for healing, growth, and change. 

In sessions, Brian sees all clients as whole persons – with family, social lives, professional responsibilities and goals, sexual desires, physical needs, spiritual perspectives, and multiple intersecting identities, all of which need airtime in the therapeutic journey. From the first session, Brian works to build each client relationship on a foundation of warmth, empathy, acceptance, and curiosity to cultivate the safety and trust needed for clients to engage with their emotions, explore their truths, and find meaning in their experiences. Brian emphasizes a psychoanalytic approach to support clients in integrating unconscious needs and motivations into their conscious awareness, ultimately increasing self-compassion, and improving emotional regulation and behavioral decision-making.

Brian has specialized training and expertise in working with: gender, sexuality, LGBTQIA+ identifying people, poly/non-monogamy, kink, trauma, fetish sexualities, sexual compulsion, sexual inhibitions, solosexuality, sex work, addiction and substance use, parents and caregivers of LGBTQIA+ individuals, spirituality, online dating/hook-up apps, relationship lifecycle, depression, anxiety, self-esteem, body dysmorphia, aging, assertiveness, political activism, professional development and satisfaction, W/white accountability and antiracist culture, and self-actualization. 

Before coming to Manhattan Therapy, Brian ran The Gender & Sexuality Therapy Center’s first psychotherapy group focused specifically on attachment styles and presented to other clinicians on best practices for working with clients who practice kink sexualities.