Treatment

Kati N. Lake, PhD (she/her) is a clinical psychologist who works with individuals experiencing symptoms associated with trauma, mood, and anxiety disorders. She is currently a post-doctoral fellow at New York Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical College in the adult outpatient clinic and women’s inpatient unit.

What You Can Expect in Treatment

We begin with assessing what is triggering and maintaining your stress. Next, we review treatments and select the right one to address your symptoms. Across our work, we will measure changes in behaviors, thoughts, and emotions to ensure we’re on the right path. Together, we connect how the things that have happened to you might be affecting your current life, keeping in mind how your experiences and identities influence your well-being.

Assessment and Diagnosis

Initial assessment of symptoms and functioning provides a solid foundation for accurate diagnosis and effective treatment. To do this, Dr. Lake works to understand how the things that have happened to you might affect your current life through targeted evaluation of behaviors, thoughts, and emotions. After the assessment is complete, your specific symptoms are given a name, which is also referred to as a diagnosis.

Evidenced-Based Treatment

Once a diagnosis is established, Dr. Lake provides information on the evidence-based treatments proven to reduce your symptoms. Then, you select at treatment based on your unique needs and preferences. Together, you map out a plan with specific, achievable, and measurable goals for recovery that are evaluated each week.

Trauma-Informed, Patient-Centered Care

Dr. Lake is guided by trauma-informed approaches to care, which seek to address the psychological and neurobiological impacts of trauma. She also embraces patient-centered care practices, inviting you to actively collaborate in treatment, which has been shown to increase autonomy, self-efficacy, and capacity for authentic expression.

Evidenced-Based Treatments

Informed by current clinical research, Dr. Lake offers a variety of treatments for Trauma- and Stressor-Related Disorders, Depressive Disorders, Anxiety Disorders, Dissociative Disorders, Schizophrenia and Psychotic Disorders, Bipolar Disorders, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorders, Somatic Disorders, and Substance Disorders, Personality Disorders, as well as Suicidal Behavior and Non–Suicidal Self–Injury.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

CBT is a short-term, structured treatment that teaches individuals how to be their own therapist by identifying, challenging, and changing unhelpful or inaccurate thoughts to transform behaviors and emotions.

Cognitive Processing Therapy

CPT is a type of cognitive behavioral therapy that helps individuals to identify, challenge, and change unhelpful or inaccurate beliefs surrounding a traumatic event.

Prolonged Exposure

PE is a type of cognitive behavioral therapy that assists individuals in approaching behaviors, thoughts, and emotions they have been avoiding related to a traumatic event.

Dialectical Behavior Therapy

DBT is a type of cognitive behavioral therapy that teaches skills to honor both acceptance (e.g., person, situation) and change (e.g., mindfulness, distress tolerance, emotion regulation, interpersonal effectiveness).

Dialectical Behavior Therapy–Prolonged Exposure

DBT–PE is a type of cognitive behavioral therapy for those with PTSD that also experience life-threatening behaviors, such as self–harming or suicidality.

Interpersonal Psychotherapy

IPT is a type of interpersonal therapy that helps individuals to identify current relationships and/or situations triggering and sustaining distress and then helping to improve them through the use of skills and by mobilizing social support.

Written Exposure Therapy

WET is a type of extinction therapy that assists individuals by having them write about a traumatic experience.