Sarah Best (she/her)

I specialize in reproductive health, including infertility, miscarriage, stillbirth, neonatal loss, fetal diagnosis, pregnancy termination, and perinatal mood and anxiety disorders. My commentary on these experiences has appeared in The Huffington Post, Psychology Today, BabyCenter, Seleni.org, Romper, and in The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post, as well as in several best-selling volumes on motherhood. I've authored nationally accredited training programs on perinatal mood and anxiety disorders for the Seleni Institute and have lectured at hospitals, EAPs, government-sponsored training programs, and peer-reviewed conferences throughout the United States.

In addition to reproductive health concerns, I work with adults, couples, nontraditional partnerships, and families facing a wide range of emotional, life-stage, and interpersonal challenges. I've provided mental health services in court-based, hospital-based, hospice, outpatient, and group practice settings since 2004 and have maintained a full-time private practice since 2015. A white mother of children of color, I have a particular interest in supporting those navigating interracial and multicultural identity development and family functioning.

I earned my master's degree as a merit scholar at New York University and have completed 14 years of intensive postgraduate training: in psychodynamic psychotherapy and psychoanalysis at the William Alanson White Institute (WAWI); in the nonverbal therapeutic process with Dr. Beatrice Beebe; in couples and family therapy at the Ackerman Institute for the Family; and in cognitive-behavioral therapy at the Beck Institute. I've also earned certificates from the Postpartum Stress Center, Postpartum Support International, and Behavioral Tech/The Linehan Institute. To stay grounded in my practice, I continue my personal psychoanalysis and work with seasoned consultants weekly.

In addition to clinical practice, I teach and supervise WAWI psychoanalytic-psychotherapy trainees and psychoanalytic candidates at the National Institute for the Psychotherapies. I’ve taught and supervised MSW students from NYU’s Silver School of Social Work and Mental Health Counseling students from NYU's Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development. I provide individual consultation to licensed clinical social workers, psychologists, mental health counselors, psychiatrists, and psychiatric nurse practitioners. I also facilitate Balint-style supervision groups for clinicians from diverse disciplines and with varied practice experience.

I'm fortunate to have trained with seminal researchers, theorists, and clinicians. And I’m inspired by the myriad paths to reducing suffering and to building whole selves and full lives. I respect the complexity and diversity of being human. So I work collaboratively and exhaustively with patients to craft therapies aligned with their personal concerns, values, and goals—and that center the person-to-person relationship psychotherapy provides.