You may desire clarity or already have insight into these patterns but find yourself stuck in them.
Dr. Melayna Schiff, LCSW
Psychotherapist · EMDR
Provider · PhD in Philosophy · Licensed in Virginia
By integrating evidence-based therapy with existential depth, authentic human presence, and a nuanced awareness of context, identity, and power, I support clients in moving beyond insight into ways of living that feel more intentional, authentic, and aligned.
I offer a depth-oriented, trauma-focused, evidence-informed approach to therapy for people seeking insight and meaningful change.
Areas of Focus
I offer services that support a wide range of concerns and people with diverse life contexts, including those that don't fit conventional templates. My goal is to help you come to understand yourself more fully and use that to build a more authentic life. I offer services that focus on:
Identity and Meaning Exploration
Making space for the deeper questions about who you are, what matters to you, and how you want to live.
Healthy Relationships and Relationship Challenges
Understanding patterns, healing relational wounds, and building more intentional connections.
Internalized Expectations and Social Influences
Identifying and questioning the roles and scripts you've inherited and mapping a path that's authentically yours.
Trauma
Including complex, relational, and single-incident trauma, approached through evidence-based therapy and an empowerment-oriented lens.
Relationship Anarchy and Non-monogamy
Providing informed support for people navigating relationships outside conventional structures.
Kink-Affirming Care
Welcoming intentionality around power, desire, and connection, with care for the ways your history shapes that landscape.
On paper, your life looks “good”—so why do things feel off?
Maybe you feel overloaded and overwhelmed, overcome with big emotions that seem to come out of nowhere, exhausted from holding it all together.
Or you may find yourself caught in loops of anticipation and urgency, constantly scanning for the next crisis and how to stay ahead of it, making it hard to ever fully feel at ease.
There may be a subtle distance from yourself, from others, or from the immediacy of your own experience. You may feel like you're moving through your life, but not fully in it.
You may have made thoughtful choices, met expectations, done what made sense. And, yet, things may not feel the way you expected….
You might find yourself...
Following scripts
Following scripts for a “good” life but feeling empty, exhausted, and out of touch with yourself
Chasing achievement
Striving tirelessly toward the next achievement or milestone, telling yourself fulfillment will finally come
Fantasizing about rescue
Longing for the “right” relationship to arrive, believing that being seen or chosen will make everything okay
Waiting for change
Pinning your happiness on someone else changing or hoping for circumstances to magically shift
Molding to fit
Shaping yourself around others’ wants and needs, hoping they’ll do the same for you
Sticking to the familiar
Gravitating back toward patterns and relationships that no longer fit you or who you’re becoming
How I Can Help
My job is to help you reclaim agency over the issues you're navigating and move forward into a life that feels more authentically yours. This means working to find relief from these challenges while carefully uncovering and addressing their underlying causes. I work across the layers of your life—including your body, habits, emotions, thoughts, relationships, existential concerns, and social systems—to identify these underlying causes. Our relationship serves as a vehicle for insight, and we approach what's difficult with pacing and containment. As you process what's keeping you stuck, it loses its grip and you can finally move forward. From here, you build the capacity and confidence to walk a more empowered path.
Trauma-Informed Care
A trauma-informed foundation shapes the pace and tone of everything we do together, enabling us to move toward what's difficult without moving faster than you're ready for.
Psychodynamic Psychotherapy
Psychodynamic Psychotherapy helps us explore how your past relationships and experiences have shaped who you are, empowering you to intentionally author what comes next.
EMDR
EMDR addresses unprocessed experiences that are keeping you stuck, using bilateral stimulation to help your brain finally process them so the past loses its grip and you can move forward from the present.
Empowerment Focus
An empowerment focus reveals the roles you were placed in before you had a say. By recognizing what's been imposed, you can identify and embody a more authentic way of living.
Existential Approach
An existentially-oriented approach holds space for both the search for meaning and the anxiety that comes with releasing a life shaped by norms and expectations to live in line with your own values and desires.
And More
As a client-centered therapist, I draw on a range of additional approaches as they become relevant, in pursuit of what will be most useful and resonant for you at any given point in our work together.
My background shapes this work in a distinctive way.
I am a Licensed Clinical Social Worker with a PhD in philosophy. My specialized training in trauma and experience as a psychotherapist allow me to build safe, trusting relationships and utilize an integrative, evidence-informed approach to therapy that fosters meaningful change, while my background as a philosopher gives me the depth and tolerance for complexity to accompany you through the layered challenges of existence—identity, love, meaning, agency, freedom, responsibility, flourishing, and death. Together, these strengths allow me to meet you in the fullness of your hopes and struggles, and to walk alongside you with steadiness and care as you navigate life's most meaningful and challenging moments. I offer traditional standing sessions, extended sessions, and therapy intensives. Together, we'll find the format that serves you best.
If this resonates, the next step is simple.
If you are looking for a space to explore your experience more deeply and work toward meaningful change, contact us to schedule an appointment today!