Ryan Herman, LMHC-LP, is a transgender and nonbinary staff clinician at BPS. They received their Ed.M. in Psychological Counseling and an Advanced Certificate in Gender and Sexuality Studies from Teachers College, Columbia University. Ryan has been extensively trained in working with people who struggle with Anxiety, Depression, and Emotion Regulation  and provides, CBT, DBT, and various evidence-based interventions for treating trauma, such as DBT-PE, WET and CPT. Ryan is passionate about promoting the well-being of LGBTQ+ populations. Ryan offers sexuality and gender-affirming counseling to clients of all identities, specializing in topics such as body-image concerns, disordered eating, trauma, and life transitions. Ryan aims to help clients slow down, decrease shame, and enhance cognitive flexibility in order to access relief, joy, and hope.

Throughout their graduate education, Ryan served on a psychological research team studying stress and resilience processes among marginalized populations. Upon graduating, Ryan assisted on a study about how queer women, transgender, and nonbinary people navigate stress in romantic relationships. Through in-depth, qualitative interviews Ryan worked with a team of researchers at Columbia School of Nursing to investigate questions such as, “How do queer people cope with stress individually and at the couple-level?”, “How does gender affirmation in romantic and familial relationships support mental health outcomes?” and “How does substance use mitigate or enhance stress among LGBTQ couples?” This study is funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) foundation and will be published in the coming year.

From 2019 to 2021, Ryan worked as a staff clinician at Kull Initiative for Psychotherapy (Kip) providing individual therapy to clients ages 11 – 38. At Kip, Ryan facilitated group therapy for transgender and nonbinary clients to promote social support and decrease internalized shame. Ryan also designed and helped facilitate a psychological counseling group for white clients to explore internalized racism and target defensive responses therapeutically called “Unlearning Racism, Unpacking Whiteness”.

Outside of work, Ryan can be found biking around Brooklyn, attempting to bake a cake, or playing catch with anyone who can be convinced to join.