About Dr. Samantha Gaies
Samantha Gaies, phd
psychologist
mindfulness trainer
executive coach
Dr. Samantha Gaies is a New York City-based Clinical Psychologist with more than 15 years of clinical, counseling, consulting, and coaching experience. She opened SGS Practices in order to create an integrated practice to help individuals grow and develop in myriad aspects of their lives. In her work, she uses principles from mindfulness meditation, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), hypnotherapy, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), positive psychology, executive coaching techniques, psychodynamic and interpersonal theories, and other strengths-based approaches to help individuals create fulfilling and lasting changes.
After more than 20 years of education, training, and clinical and practical experience, Dr. Gaies has crafted a unique style to become an expert in helping people struggling with anxiety and stress, life transitions and career changes, insomnia, infertility, pregnancy and postpartum support, relationship concerns, trauma, grief and loss, professional obstacles and blocks, and executive and performance coaching. Dr. Gaies currently offers the following services: individual therapy, couples therapy, executive coaching, mindfulness training, and consulting. To learn more about each service, please peruse the website or reach out directly by sending Dr. Gaies an email.
education
NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY
BS in Radio/TV/Film; Certificate in Leadership
NEW YORK UNIVERSITY
MA Coursework in Psychology
UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN
MA in Educational Psychology
PhD in Counseling Psychology
Professional experience
NY Health Hypnosis & Integrative Therapy
Clinical Psychologist & Director of Operations
Atlanta Veterans MEDICAL CENTER
Residency & Fellowship in Integrative Health Psychology
UNIVERSITY of Texas at Austin
Career Counselor, Therapist & Project Manager
Johnson O’Connor Research Foundation
Aptitude Consultant & Counselor
CLINICAL TRAINING
EVIDENCE-BASED PRACTICES
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
Prolonged Exposure (PE)
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia (CBT-I)
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)
Mindful Self-Compassion (with Dr. Kristin Neff)
The Gottman Method
clinical certifications
Motivational Interviewing (MI)
Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT)
Hypnotherapy Training
American Society of Clinical Hypnosis (ASCH)
becoming a psychologist
Dr. Samantha Gaies’s first foray into the exploration of emotions and human experience began during her undergraduate years at Northwestern University, where she majored in Radio/TV/Film and earned a certificate in Leadership. After a few years of working with fictional stories in the film industry at Miramax and The Weinstein Company, Dr. Gaies realized she preferred a field in which she could make a significant impact with people instead of made-up characters. She began her professional career in counseling at the Johnson O’Connor Research Foundation, a national non-profit organization where she assessed individuals’ aptitudes and counseled them so they could better understand how to find more satisfaction in their careers and educational pursuits. A few years later, she began her academic training in psychology at New York University (NYU), where she completed master’s level courses in General Psychology and began her experiential education of Eastern philosophy and psychology by learning about and engaging in Transcendental Meditation (TM).
A year after enrolling at New York University (NYU), Dr. Gaies joined the doctoral program at the University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin), where she obtained an MA in Educational Psychology and then a PhD in Counseling Psychology. While at UT Austin, she engaged in educational pursuits related to mindfulness and Eastern traditions, including Buddhist and Indian Philosophy university courses, self-compassion seminars led by Dr. Kristin Neff, mindfulness trainings conducted by MBSR-certified instructors, and many other presentations, classes, seminars, and learning opportunities related to the mind-body connection. Through these experiences, she became an expert in using these philosophies and tools in therapy to enhance individuals’ mental health and quality of life. Moreover, Dr. Gaies’s research focused on exploring the positive effects of mindfulness and self-compassion in relation to physical and mental health, as well as studying how mental health stigma affects therapy and wellbeing. Her dissertation focused on the negative impact of over-diagnosing patients and investigated ways in which psychologists can ensure that patients are treated with respect and dignity as unique individuals while in therapy.
After finishing her coursework and academic research, Dr. Gaies went on to complete both her Pre-doctoral Internship and Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Atlanta VA Medical Center. During her time at the VA, she spent more than half of her clinical hours specializing in Integrative Behavioral Health disciplines, such as insomnia and sleep problems, chronic pain, cardiac anxiety, sexual health, pelvic pain, eating disorders and emotional eating, weight management, and health anxiety. During her training, Dr. Gaies also worked in the Trauma Recovery Program/Military Sexual Trauma Unit, where she helped individuals work through their experience of Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) using Prolonged Exposure (PE) and Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT). While at the VA, Dr. Gaies became certified in Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT) and Motivational Interviewing (MI), as well as becoming an expert in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia (CPT-I) and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). Additionally, she created mindfulness groups and therapies to help individuals overcome anxieties, traumas and long-held self-limiting beliefs, alleviating mental health problems that many patients believed would never be improved. To round out her experience, Dr. Gaies also spent time strengthening her leadership skills with a minor rotation shadowing the executive leadership team in the psychology department.
Prior to opening SGS Practices, Dr. Gaies worked for several years at a New York City-based private practice, where she honed her clinical skills related to mindfulness and hypnosis/hypnotherapy. During those years, she was able to specialize in areas of personal and clinical interest, including anxiety (general and health-related), life transitions, insomnia, infertility, pregnancy and postpartum support, relationship concerns, career conflicts and performance problems, trauma, grief and loss, emotional eating, and eating disorders.