Pictured: Dr. Kathy Cosgrove

By Ellen Edwards, Board Member of The Counseling Center

May 2, 2024: Virgil Roberson, Executive Director, and Jennifer Naparstek Klein, Clinical Director, are delighted to announce that Dr. Kathy Cosgrove, a licensed psychologist with more than 20 years of experience, has joined the staff of The Counseling Center.

Kathy has served adolescents and adults in individual therapy. Her areas of interest include working with people who struggle with trauma, eating disorders, interpersonal effectiveness, depression, and anxiety. By focusing on symptom resolution, while also increasing insight and self-awareness, Kathy hopes to support her clients in making long lasting changes.

Achieving certification as a licensed psychologist requires rigorous training—seven years of graduate-level classroom education and experience in clinical settings. Kathy’s graduate work included rotations in a variety of clinical settings and a year-long internship. During a post-doctoral fellowship at Pace University, she completed her clinical preparation.

Kathy has served as the Director of Student Support Services at the Marymount School, a private Catholic girls’ school in Manhattan; prior to that, she worked at Marymount for 15 years as the school psychologist. In addition, she has consulted with other private schools seeking to reassess the mental health care services they offer students and establish a road map to setting up more effective health and wellness programs. Throughout her professional career, she has also maintained a private practice.

Kathy received her undergraduate degree from the College of the Holy Cross and her doctorate from Fordham University. After an early start in finance and non-profits, she realized that psychology spoke more strongly to her. “As I was a sociology and English person as an undergrad,” she wrote in an email, “I went to Columbia's post baccalaureate psychology program (in its inaugural year!) for one year to get core psychology courses before applying to grad school and getting in for my Ph.D.”

Early in her career, Kathy worked at multiple college counseling centers in the New York City area, within the Veterans Health Administration, and at the Federal Bureau of Investigation, utilizing these experiences to inform her work as a clinician and school administrator. For a time, Kathy was a professor at Fordham University and a guest lecturer at Barnard College.

Over the years, Kathy has seen the landscape of adolescent mental health drastically alter and has worked diligently to address her clients’ needs through parent and faculty education, student support, and systemic changes.

In the time before Covid, research showed that adolescents in affluent and middle-class homes were becoming more at risk as they experienced increasing pressure to perform. When students perceived the stakes to get into “good” colleges to be especially high, they were sometimes less able to develop grit or to tolerate frustration; when they saw a need to be perfect, they lost the freedom to try and possibly fail, which can be necessary for discovering passion and purpose in one’s life. As a result, kids are often less resilient and, in some cases, more disconnected from their families.

Although for a time Covid reversed some of these trends, the race to return to “normalcy” once the worst of the pandemic was past has largely restored us to pre-Covid rates of adolescents who are at risk.

Kathy’s experience with these issues makes her ideally suited to serving adolescents and young adults in our community. “I like working with adolescents and young adults,” she said, “because they are always changing and growing (by virtue of their development) and so they are fun to work with. I also like the experience of developing a strong relationship with this age group, knowing how much it matters for them to have another trusted adult in their lives.”

Kathy was drawn to The Counseling Center by its mission to offer high quality services by seasoned therapists to people from many different backgrounds, even if they can’t afford full-fee services. As some practices are beginning to charge clients for incremental time spent on their care outside of their therapy sessions (phone calls, paperwork, etc.), she finds unique and appealing The Counseling Center’s business model as a nonprofit organization that raises funds to support clients who would not otherwise be able to access mental health care services. The chance to work in a small group setting with clinicians she respects while receiving peer supervision of her work are also strong attractions for her.

Having grown up in Westchester County, where she now lives, Kathy knows the area well. She is available for in-person or teletherapy sessions. Although she prefers working in-person with her Counseling Center clients, she’s happy to accommodate their needs, for example when they’re traveling, ill, or need flexibility for a reschedule. What works for her clients works for her!

The Counseling Center in Bronxville offers therapy for individuals, couples, and families, both in person and through telehealth (online or by phone). Please feel free to reach out if we can help, by calling Dr. Jennifer Klein, 914 793, 3388.

To keep abreast of ongoing information and activities at The Counseling Center, please visit our website.

Please consider making a donation to The Counseling Center’s annual appeal to raise funds to support clients who cannot afford full-fee service.