Life Transitions Therapy on Long Island

For the version of your life that doesn’t look like it used to, and doesn’t feel settled yet either.

Some changes are chosen. Others aren’t. A divorce, a career change, kids leaving for college, a move, a retirement that felt exciting in theory and disorienting in practice. Life transitions therapy has less to do with a single diagnosis and more to do with the specific disruption that happens when the structure of your life changes and your sense of who you are hasn’t caught up yet.

Common Transitions We Work With

Divorce or relationship endings. Rebuilding identity and daily structure after a relationship that shaped both for years.

Empty nest. The disorientation of a home, and often a marriage, that has to be renegotiated once children are no longer the daily organizing principle.

Career changes or job loss. Especially difficult when identity has been closely tied to professional role or status, common among Nassau County’s career-driven population.

Retirement. A transition that’s often assumed to be purely positive and can carry real grief and loss of purpose underneath the relief.

Relocation. Even a chosen move disrupts routine, community, and a sense of place that took years to build, whether that’s a regular walk at Eisenhower Park, a summer routine at Jones Beach, or simply knowing your way around your own town.

Why This Doesn’t Always Resolve on Its Own

Transitions are often treated, by others and by the person going through them, as things you simply adjust to with time. Sometimes that’s true. Often, particularly when a transition intersects with an existing pattern (a divorce that reactivates old abandonment fears, a retirement that surfaces a lifelong link between identity and productivity) time alone isn’t enough, because the transition isn’t really the problem. It’s revealing something underneath that predates it.

Our Approach

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)

Building psychological flexibility during a period when the old rules for who you are no longer apply cleanly.

Psychodynamic Therapy

Addressing what a given transition is surfacing from earlier in your life, when that history is part of what’s making the current change harder than expected.

Dynamic Experiential Learning (DEL)

Developed here at Long Island Psychology by Dr. Shulman, DEL works directly with the emotional material a transition has stirred up, rather than only discussing it.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)

Practical tools for the anxiety or low mood that often accompanies major change.

Positive Psychology

Actively building a next chapter, not only processing the one that ended.

Why Long Island Psychology

This work is led by Dr. Marc J. Shulman, Psy.D., and a team of licensed clinicians trained across ACT, Psychodynamic Therapy, Dynamic Experiential Learning, CBT, and Positive Psychology. Explore our Depression Therapy and Anxiety Therapy pages, since low mood and anxiety often accompany major life change. We see patients from our Garden City and Rockville Centre offices and via telehealth throughout New York State. As a self-pay practice, we provide superbill receipts for out-of-network reimbursement.

What to Expect in Your First Session

We start with the specific transition and what’s felt hardest about it, then work outward to understand what it’s connecting to in your broader history.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is this the same as grief counseling?

Related, and grief is often part of a transition, but this work covers a broader range of change, not only loss.

What if the transition was something I chose and wanted?

Chosen transitions can still be disorienting. Wanting a change doesn’t make adjusting to it automatic.

How long does this kind of therapy typically take?

It varies widely depending on what the transition is surfacing; some patients need a short course of support, others find deeper patterns worth addressing.

What actually counts as a "life transition" worth addressing in therapy?

Anything that changes the structure of your daily life or sense of identity: a divorce, a career change, an empty nest, a move, a retirement, even a positive change that still feels disorienting.

Can couples work through a transition together in session?

Yes, when a transition is affecting both partners, we can address it jointly, sometimes alongside individual sessions.

Do you see people going through divorce specifically?

Yes, both the practical adjustment and the deeper identity questions that often come with it.

What if I'm anticipating a transition that hasn't happened yet?

That’s a common and valid reason to start. Preparing for a known transition, rather than only processing one after the fact, is part of this work.

Is this different from career coaching?

Yes. Career coaching focuses on strategy and next steps. This work focuses on what the transition is stirring up emotionally and why it’s harder than it looks from the outside.