Ethan Freedman, LMSW

Closeness can be cultivated in more ways than we're told, and therapy offers a collaborative space to build it intentionally. I offer a warm, compassionate place where you're met with empathy, curiosity, humility, gentle accountability, and a touch of silly, so you can be curious about intimacy, sexuality, relationships, and identity without shame or judgment. My work with individuals, couples, and relationship systems grew out of research into how sex, sexuality, and connection are shaped by systems, culture, power, and the stories we inherit, and having navigated these pressures myself, I know how meaningful it is to question what you've been taught and imagine something new. 

Whether you're navigating sexual health, desire, arousal, pleasure, intimacy, consent, infidelity, or communication; questioning LGBTQ+ identity or carrying minority stress; exploring kink, polyamory, or other nonnormative relationship structures; or sorting through masculinity, femininity, gender, and gender roles, my work meets you at where you arrive. This includes where digital intimacy, adult content, and sexual technologies are reshaping human connection and our relationships to ourselves. 

My integrative and collaborative approach is shaped around what you need, drawing from narrative therapy, CBT, acceptance and commitment therapy, psychodynamic work, and somatic therapy, within a sex-positive and anti-oppressive orientation attentive to how race, gender, and power shape our intimate lives. I believe healing and change happen in relationship, not isolation, and that being alone isn't the same as being lonely; you don't have to carry it by yourself.

I studied Psychology and Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Colgate and earned my Master's in Social Work from Columbia University, specializing in Leadership, Management, and Entrepreneurship. My practice is rooted in bystander intervention facilitation, LGBTQ+ initiatives, and sexual violence survivor support alongside consulting in adult industries and supporting sextech and femtech development that advocates for industry providers. I'm an LMSW practicing under supervision at Wise Therapy, and currently working toward AASECT certification as a sex therapist. I care about the change we build rippling outward into policies, systems, innovation, and communities that support and affirm all people. Outside of sessions, I enjoy surfing, skating, biking, making large-scale art, hanging with my cat, and taking deep breaths.