Derek Bakay, LMHC

Derek Bakay is a licensed mental health counselor (LMHC) based in New York with 15 years of clinical experience. He works with people facing stress, anxiety, depression, career concerns, and the strain of life changes. Derek takes a respectful, nonjudgmental approach and focuses on each person’s strengths during sessions.

He blends client-centered listening with practical strategies from cognitive behavioral therapy and solution-focused work. Sessions tend to be interactive and goal-oriented, with time spent identifying what is most important to the client and testing small, doable changes. Derek emphasizes clear communication and tailors goals to each person’s day-to-day life.

Derek has experience supporting people dealing with caregiver stress, chronic pain or illness, aging and geriatric issues, and disability adjustment challenges. He also helps with relationship and intimacy concerns, blended family issues, parenting stress, and life-purpose questions. Work can include coaching-style conversations around career, fatherhood, and midlife transitions.

People who connect with his style can expect a focus on practical steps alongside empathic listening. He avoids stigmatizing labels and centers the client’s own knowledge of their life. Sessions move at a pace set by the client and focus on solving immediate problems while building lasting skills.

To begin, Derek asks new clients to complete a short matching questionnaire and then schedules sessions based on availability. Fees vary with location and subscriptions can be canceled at any time.

How Derek’s approaches translate to online work

Derek uses client-centered listening to understand what matters most to each person and to build a treatment plan around their strengths. This approach focuses on empathetic listening, respectful curiosity, and tailoring the pace to the individual’s needs.

He also draws on cognitive behavioral therapy, which looks at patterns of thought and behavior and tests small changes to reduce anxiety or depression. CBT-style tasks and experiments can be adapted to work between sessions to track progress. Solution-focused therapy is used to identify short-term targets and quick steps that move people toward concrete goals, which can be helpful when managing life transitions or career decisions.

Finding the right mix of approaches is collaborative. The therapist will discuss goals, preferences, and daily routines and then recommend approaches that fit. Clients are encouraged to give feedback so the plan can be adjusted as progress is made.

Session formats are not specified in the profile, so confirm current options before booking. Online therapy can make it easier to fit sessions into a busy life, allow shorter check-ins when needed, and reduce travel time. It can also support ongoing skill practice between appointments and help clients apply changes directly in their everyday settings.