Dr. Robert Schachter - Licensed Psychologist NYC

I truly am grateful to Dr. Schachter. May must have been one of the worst months in my life. This guy I had been seeing for almost a year decided that he wanted to explore his fuller self, and had to do it alone. I wasn’t devastated as much as I was angry and felt taken advantage of. It was enough to keep me up at night, a lot of nights. Then my firm, I’m in finance, decided to reorganize, and my boss believed that I would be the best person on the current team to run a new desk, with a pretty large team. I didn’t even want that. Now I have to manage them and I didn’t think I could. Giving talks to higher management was the worst fear. I was beside myself. Now I couldn’t sleep because I was so anxious. A friend had seen Dr. Schachter. She had thought he was good. No, she actually raved about him. I called. This man has changed my life in the most amazing ways. I had seen a few shrinks before, but they usually were not as smart as me, and they would sit and say nothing. It would drive me crazy. He is very different on all counts. At the first visit he asked me a lot of questions. At the end, he told me I was normal, and that I had an anxiety disorder that was blowing everything out of proportion. What I liked the best is that he then showed me concrete methods to stop the ways I was getting anxious. He used Cognitive Therapy he said was developed by David Burns to show me how to change how I was looking at the situation. When I did that, I was not anxious anymore. It really was amazing. So, it’s August, and I am feeling very good. My team is doing great Everything is falling into place and I am getting to sleep. I owe it all to Dr. Schachter. Thank you, sir.
5 9 years ago (03-08-2016)

I found Dr. Schachter’s approach so helpful it has literally changed my life. I was in a bad place. I am a trader and I was having a bad year. I would get up and not want to face the day. I was drinking too much to unwind. I was always in a bad mood with my wife and kids. One day I felt so stressed I lost it at work. A friend said I should see Dr. Schachter because he had helped him. I liked him right away. He asked the right questions. I don’t like when people can’t keep up with me, but he seemed smart and appeared to get me. I knew I was depressed, but I didn’t know what to do about it. Dr. Schachter did not just sit there and say nothing. He taught me in a structured way to put things into perspective. It really does come down to how you look at something. He told me that depression is normal if you are in a frustrating situation that you feel you can’t change. When you get depressed the symptoms are the opposite of what you need at that time. He used the Cognitive Therapy approach developed by David Burns. So, he started by teaching me to see what thoughts were causing a feeling. A lot of the time they were not realistic. When I got discouraged, I would forget that I have been very good at what I do. I would assume that there was no way to get out of the hole I was in, and that simply was not true. He taught me to spot the times I was reacting. Then he would use a number of techniques or exercises to change the thought. It didn’t take long. He was really great. When I felt better, my work turned around. I feel like a totally changed person.
5 9 years ago (01-07-2016)

Dr. S. helped me like no one else. I have seen a lot of therapists, and he was the best. He was direct and helped me learn practical ways to feel better in a pretty short time. The therapists I saw before would just listen to what I said or try to connect what I was feeling to something that happened when I was little. I never got that because there was nothing I could do about it anyway. I was going through a lot of anxiety. I am in the travel business and I recently was promoted to head of a team. As leader of my group, I had to give a presentation every week. I was never good at that, and I was always afraid that I would make a fool of myself. Then one time my boss and his boss were at the meeting. I actually would get sick the mornings I had to present. That just couldn’t go on. A friend had said that Dr. S. was great, so I called. I liked him right away. He was warm and he seemed smart. He got the fine points of what I was saying. He really understood me in that one visit. At the end he told me that there were some simple ways to stop the anxiety. He also said that I would have to face my fears. I thought, is he kidding? I face them everyday. He used Cognitive Therapy that he said was developed by David Burns. It was amazing. I learned that I actually could control how badly I felt by changing my thoughts. He said that the way to beat anxiety is to ride it, like surfing a wave. Sometimes it goes up and then it goes down. It can’t hurt us. It just makes us uncomfortable. The key is to watch it and not be part of it. Then he taught me how do that in a very structured, easy to understand way. It was really a great experience.
5 9 years ago (03-04-2016)

I found Dr. Schachter’s approach so helpful it has literally changed my life. I was in a bad place. I am a trader and I was having a bad year. I would get up and not want to face the day. I was drinking too much to unwind. I was always in a bad mood with my wife and kids. One day I felt so stressed I lost it at work. A friend said I should see Dr. Schachter because he had helped him. I liked him right away. He asked the right questions. He seemed smart and he appeared to get me. I knew I was depressed, but I didn’t know what to do about it. Dr. Schachter did not just sit there and say nothing. He taught me in a structured way to put things into perspective. It really does come down to how you look at something. He told me that depression is normal if you are in a frustrating situation that you feel you can’t change. When you get depressed the symptoms are the opposite of what you need at that time. So, he started by teaching me to see what thoughts were causing a feeling. A lot of the time they were not realistic. When I got discouraged, I would forget that I have been very good at what I do. I would assume that there was no way to get out of the hole I was in, and that simply was not true. He taught me to spot the times I was reacting. Then he would use a number of techniques or exercises to change the thought. It didn’t take long. It was like he said reassuringly, “snap out of it”. He was really great. When I felt better, my work turned around. I feel like a totally changed person.
5 10 years ago (12-02-2016)

Dr. Schachter is fantastic. He helped me with my shyness, which was really becoming a problem. I own 2 successful restaurants in New York. I never have a problem with people at my job. I greet customers, I work well with staff, but when I am in a new situation and have to speak in front of a group, I freak out, and become very uncomfortable. It became a problem because I had just won an award and I had to go to a large function to receive it. I actually thought of turning it down. I found Dr. Schachter online. His reviews were good. I know why now. He is sensible, very smart, and down to earth. He asked me a lot of questions the first visit, instead of just sitting there. He got the picture very quickly, and told me that I had a common form of Social Anxiety. Instead of trying to explore my childhood, he gave me simple structured exercises to reverse it. He taught me Cognitive Therapy techniques in a straightforward manner. He described his role in Cognitive Therapy to teach me a skill set. He showed me a different way to look at things, and he helped me get over it. He was great.
5 11 years ago (08-11-2014)