Jeffrey Harper, LCSW, ACSW - Psychotherapist & Family Court Client Consultant/Therapist
Jeffrey Harper, LCSW, ACSW, is a psychotherapist and mental health professional with over thirty-five years’ experience treating adolescents, adults, couples and families and has over two decades serving as an executive coach and organizational consultant specializing in leadership development and communications.
He possesses substantial experience as a psychotherapist treating a broad range of life challenges – anxiety, depression, transition from adolescence to adulthood, marital and family conflict, career challenges, sexual identity issues, divorce and remarriage, among others. He also works with clients of family law firms, treating, counseling and assessing persons engaged in divorce and custody matters before Family Courts. His office is located on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, conveniently located near several subway lines and crosstown bus and north-south bus lines.
The former Assistant Director of the Counseling Center at Fordham University at Lincoln Center, where he co-created and led a seminar on “The Technique of Psychodynamic Psychotherapy,” supervised doctoral students and carried a full caseload of undergraduate and graduate students from ages 18-65 years old, Jeffrey Harper has also worked and trained at Montefiore North’s Outpatient Psychiatry Clinic in the north Bronx (formerly Our Lady of Mercy Medical Center’s Outpatient Psychiatry Clinic); at the Payne Whitney Psychiatric Clinic, New York Presbyterian Medical Center; at Lehman College’s Counseling Center. He has been a Grand Rounds speaker on the topic “The Decline of Adulthood, The Culture of Adolescence.”
A dual citizen of the United States and Canada, Jeffrey received his bachelor's degree from Harvard and his MSW degree in clinical social work from the Hunter College School of Social Work.
Approach to Therapy
In therapy we commit ourselves with quiet courage, compassion, tenacity and honesty to a deeper understanding of ourselves – an understanding that can be liberating, empowering, inspiring and transformative and leads to positive changes in our lives.
How we work can vary and is determined by the collaborative understanding and work between us – patient and therapist. My approach to therapy is informed by training in psychodynamic therapy and cognitive behavioral treatment (CBT). Our therapeutic work can be helpful to you and those you care about if you would like to:
Divorce and Child Custody Consulting and Treatment
I collaborate with some of New York’s top-rated marital and family law attorneys to work with clients with divorce and child custody cases before the Family Courts. My work combines diagnostic assessment, counseling, psychotherapy, medication referrals and co-parenting training based on the following approach:
My family law consulting practice helps:
Selected Teaching, Training and Speaking
He possesses substantial experience as a psychotherapist treating a broad range of life challenges – anxiety, depression, transition from adolescence to adulthood, marital and family conflict, career challenges, sexual identity issues, divorce and remarriage, among others. He also works with clients of family law firms, treating, counseling and assessing persons engaged in divorce and custody matters before Family Courts. His office is located on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, conveniently located near several subway lines and crosstown bus and north-south bus lines.
The former Assistant Director of the Counseling Center at Fordham University at Lincoln Center, where he co-created and led a seminar on “The Technique of Psychodynamic Psychotherapy,” supervised doctoral students and carried a full caseload of undergraduate and graduate students from ages 18-65 years old, Jeffrey Harper has also worked and trained at Montefiore North’s Outpatient Psychiatry Clinic in the north Bronx (formerly Our Lady of Mercy Medical Center’s Outpatient Psychiatry Clinic); at the Payne Whitney Psychiatric Clinic, New York Presbyterian Medical Center; at Lehman College’s Counseling Center. He has been a Grand Rounds speaker on the topic “The Decline of Adulthood, The Culture of Adolescence.”
A dual citizen of the United States and Canada, Jeffrey received his bachelor's degree from Harvard and his MSW degree in clinical social work from the Hunter College School of Social Work.
Approach to Therapy
In therapy we commit ourselves with quiet courage, compassion, tenacity and honesty to a deeper understanding of ourselves – an understanding that can be liberating, empowering, inspiring and transformative and leads to positive changes in our lives.
How we work can vary and is determined by the collaborative understanding and work between us – patient and therapist. My approach to therapy is informed by training in psychodynamic therapy and cognitive behavioral treatment (CBT). Our therapeutic work can be helpful to you and those you care about if you would like to:
- Treat problems of anxiety, depression, self-esteem, confidence, intimacy, loneliness, sexual identity and other kinds of emotional suffering that can affect us all
- Address life challenges, conflicts, losses and changes in your relationships with your spouse, partner, colleagues, friends and family as well as in your work
- Navigate life-stage transitions – adolescence to adulthood, high school to college, college graduation and first job, marriage to divorce, single to partnered relationships, becoming an “empty nester,” professional transitions, illness and death of parents and more
- Develop a deeper understanding of yourself so you can live a more fulfilling, productive, meaningful, self-aware and rewarding life as an individual and member of a couple and family
- Improve your professional satisfaction, capabilities and leadership abilities in your job and profession
Divorce and Child Custody Consulting and Treatment
I collaborate with some of New York’s top-rated marital and family law attorneys to work with clients with divorce and child custody cases before the Family Courts. My work combines diagnostic assessment, counseling, psychotherapy, medication referrals and co-parenting training based on the following approach:
- Targeted, Strategic, Goal-Focused, Comprehensive Therapeutic Approaches and Interventions: Effective counseling and psychotherapy in family law matters often differs significantly from standard psychotherapeutic practice. Working with attorneys and their clients, my approach involves:
- Immediately identifying the most urgent legal and procedural challenges facing the client
- Performing a thorough assessment of each client’s most pressing behavioral, psychological, medical and situational (e.g., unemployment, chronic or acute illness) matters to be addressed
- Creating with each client a customized therapeutic, legally sound strategic plan to address – behaviorally, psychologically and medically – the client’s most pressing issues, using the most appropriate form of psychotherapeutic and behavioral intervention, including skills training, as well as psychiatric and medication evaluations and psychological testing if needed
- Aligning with the client and working through a prioritized list of legal, behavioral and psychological goals, adapting and revising as needed – moving from crisis management to long-term, durable improvement in clients’ emotional health and vocational and interpersonal relations
- Developing comprehensive treatment plans that help clients move beyond a single, limiting focus on their divorce and custody matters – and help them understand the long-term benefits and self-interest of improving their careers, friendships, family relations, avocations and health
- Communications Training Expertise: With nearly 25 years as a communications consultant and trainer, in my divorce and custody psychotherapy cases, I supplement, when appropriate, the psychotherapeutic work with communications training that improves clients’ ability to communicate orally and digitally inside and outside the courtroom. The result is better communication between former spouses, with judges, guardians ad litem, other psychotherapists and related parties. I also furnish, when required, professional, clear, well-written documents for the court and internal law firm use
- Client-Oriented Psychotherapy Training and Experience: I bring over 35 years of clinical psychotherapeutic experience to my work, and have received training in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Dialectal Behavioral Therapy and psychodynamic psychotherapy – providing me with a range of therapeutic tools that are employed depending on each client’s need. As the former Assistant Director of Fordham University’s Counseling Center, where I supervised doctoral candidates in clinical and counseling psychology and co-led a seminar in the technique of psychoanalytic psychotherapy, I also bring to my work decades of experience as an experienced clinician, teacher, supervisor and administrator
- Co-Parenting Training and Execution: I have tools and resources to help clients develop a co-parenting plan – and also have the knowledge and skill to coach, guide and support parents on the best practices, “Do’s and Don’ts” and winning strategies for making co-parenting following divorce and separation as productive as possible
My family law consulting practice helps:
- Clients whose self-destructive behavior – in court or with former spouses and children outside legal proceedings – damages their case, image and standing with Family Court judges, psychological evaluators, guardians ad litem and others – adversely influencing their cases’ outcomes
- Clients whose psychological state and conduct – depressed, anxious, angry, obsessed, impulsive, vengeful, punitive – renders them self-sabotaging clients, litigants and unfit parents who impair their ability to obtain the fairest and most optimal outcome for the long-term welfare of their children – and their own best interests as parents and individuals – in the short- and long-term
- Clients who suffer significant psychological impairment – depression, anxiety, grief, stress-related symptoms – as a result of the loss, pain and turmoil associated with divorce and associated litigation and who urgently need and want to improve their functioning as parents and working people
- Clients who need coaching and co-parenting assistance replacing their antagonistic, punitive actions with a shared, more cooperative partnership with a former spouse that makes the welfare and best interests of their children paramount – and helps parents get on with their own personal and professional lives
Selected Teaching, Training and Speaking
- Clinical Instructor and Supervisor, Counseling Center, Fordham University at Lincoln Center:
- Co-created and co-taught a seminar on “The Technique of Psychodynamic Psychotherapy” for Clinical and Counseling Psychology doctoral externs performing clinical rotations
- Selected and supervised PhD candidates in Clinical Psychology and Counseling Psychology who performed clinical externships and rotations at the Fordham Counseling Center at Lincoln Center
- Grand Rounds Lecturer, Department of Psychiatry, Montefiore North (formerly Our Lady of Mercy Medical Center): “The Decline of Adulthood, the Culture of Adolescence”
- Guest Commentator, National Public Radio, Morning Edition: “Abu Ghraib and the Dark Side of Humanity,” co-written with Dr. Jeffery Dyke
- Patient Ambassador Trainer, CSL Bering: Created several speaker training programs for healthcare organization CSL Bering that trained patient ambassadors assisting patients and their families with management of their medical conditions
- Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Training, American Institute of Cognitive Therapy
- Cognitive Behavioral Treatment in Clinical Practice, NASW, Susan Dowd Stone
