About Therapist Sean O’Toole
After more than twenty years in academia, I returned to school to become a psychotherapist. I know firsthand what it means to build a professional identity, question it, and begin imagining a different future.
My background in literature continues to shape the way I practice. I’m interested in the meanings people make from their experiences: the identities they develop, the expectations they carry, the patterns that can become so habitual that they are difficult to see from the inside. At the same time, my clinical training has taught me to pay attention not only to the stories we tell but also to how emotion and experience are held in the body.
I’ve spent much of my life exploring how people understand themselves and the worlds they inhabit. Therapy has given me another way to engage that process, as a curious and collaborative companion in discovering what comes next.
Areas of focus
I’m a licensed master social worker with clinical training, decades of life experience, and a firsthand perspective on systems that ask too much.
Many of my clients are people who have spent their lives being who other people needed them to be. Often, trauma or difficult experiences have shaped these patterns in ways that can be hard to recognize from within. I believe change happens when we can begin to listen to what we truly need—in both mind and body—and develop the capacity to respond with greater choice.
Sessions with me are gentle, thoughtful, and collaborative. I’m curious and engaged in the room, and I’ll listen closely while also being willing to challenge patterns or assumptions when I think it may be helpful. We’ll move at a pace that leaves room for reflection and, if you choose, noticing what’s happening in your body.
Most important is creating a space where you feel safe and understood, so you can become curious about yourself and what might be possible.
Education, credentials, & trainings
Master of Social Work – Fordham University
PhD, English Literature – CUNY Graduate Center
Bachelor of Arts, Georgetown University
Certificate in Core Components and Skills for Trauma-Informed Practice – UNC School of Social Work
Somatic Experiencing Professional Training – Completed Modules 1–3 focusing on nervous system regulation and trauma resolution
Continuing education in Psychopharmacology for Psychotherapists, Mood Disorders, and Eating Disorders
Member, National Institute for the Psychotherapies, Clinicians Collective, Community and Beyond–NYC
Pneumaworks Therapy Group — Staff Psychotherapist, working under the clinical supervision of Robert A. Friedrich, LCSW
A longstanding practice of meditation and mindfulness