Yana Gaykov , LCSW

Yana Gaykov is a licensed clinical social worker with 20 years of practice in New York. She centers her work on practical steps people can take when life feels overwhelming. Yana emphasizes a respectful, strengths-based stance and helps clients name what matters to them. Her background includes long experience with stress, anxiety, depression, and relationship concerns. She also supports people facing parenting challenges, grief, trauma and abuse, and issues around intimacy and self-esteem. Yana works with a wide range of behavioral and mood concerns including ADHD, bipolar conditions, and problems with sleep or eating. Yana pays attention to life transitions and complex situations like adoption and foster care, caregiving strain, chronic illness and disability, and multicultural concerns. She also addresses concerns related to pregnancy and childbirth, midlife shifts, infidelity, and recovery from addictive behaviors. Women’s issues are a noted area of additional focus. In sessions she treats clients as partners in the work and builds on strengths already present. She helps people set clear goals, try new ways of coping, and practice skills between meetings. The style is direct but compassionate, aiming for steady, manageable change. Yana’s practice includes short check-ins and longer therapeutic work depending on a person’s needs. She encourages anyone who feels stuck or exhausted by a problem to take the next step and explore what a different approach might look like.

Approaches that guide online care and how they help

Yana uses evidence-based therapeutic techniques that focus on building skills and changing unhelpful patterns. One common approach she uses teaches practical coping skills for anxiety, stress, and mood management, helping people notice triggers and try small experiments to reduce distress. Another approach emphasizes tracking thoughts, behaviors, and routines to improve sleep, eating, and impulse control, which is useful for depression, ADHD, and anger issues.

Choosing the best approach is a collaborative process. The therapist will talk with each person about their goals, preferences, and what has or hasn’t worked before, then tailor techniques to fit those needs. This makes it easier to adjust pacing and strategies as progress is made.

Online sessions are offered by video call, phone, live chat, or text-based messaging to increase flexibility. Video calls allow face-to-face interaction for deeper conversation, phone sessions can work well when bandwidth is limited, and live chat or messaging suits quick check-ins or ongoing support between sessions. These options make it easier to fit therapy into a busy schedule and continue care when in-person visits are not possible.