About Anna
I’m Anna Holtzman, LMHC, a psychotherapist based in New York.
I work primarily with thoughtful, capable women who carry a great deal internally, often while appearing composed and dependable on the outside. They may be the ones others rely on, at work, in relationships, in their families, or behind the scenes of everyone else’s wellbeing. They are often women who reflect deeply, care deeply, and want meaningful change, not quick fixes.
Many of the women I work with have spent years adapting to environments where responsibility, achievement, caregiving, or keeping things together became more familiar than rest, pleasure, or emotional honesty. Over time, they may begin to feel disconnected from themselves in ways that are difficult to explain, especially because their lives often look successful from the outside.
Before becoming a therapist, I spent many years working in publishing and television in high-pressure creative environments where I became deeply interested in the gap between how people appear externally and what they're carrying privately.
During that time, I also experienced years of debilitating migraine. Through discovering mind-body approaches, I was able to break the chronic cycle of migraine, fundamentally changing the way I understood the relationship between emotions, the nervous system, and physical health. That experience has deeply informed my clinical orientation and continues to shape the way I think about healing.
My clinical work integrates psychotherapy with advanced training in somatic and nervous-system-based approaches. I hold a Master's degree in Mental Health Counseling from NYU and a Bachelor's degree from Barnard College. I am also certified in Pain Reprocessing Therapy (PRT) and have completed advanced training in Somatic Experiencing.
I don’t see therapy as a place where someone comes to be fixed or optimized. I see it as a space where people can begin hearing themselves more clearly again beneath the pressure of who they’ve learned they need to be.
Clients often describe me as steady, thoughtful, direct, and deeply attuned. I care a lot about creating a therapy space that feels emotionally honest, grounded, private, and free from performance.
If you’re interested in exploring whether this work feels like a fit, you’re welcome to reach out through the contact form.
Featured in...
Speaking with Her Wealth: Unscripted by Sorelle Wealth Partners, Anna explores a pattern she sees in many accomplished women: becoming highly skilled at reading other people while gradually losing trust in their own inner authority.
Women who appear confident, capable, and successful on the outside can still find themselves organizing their decisions around maintaining harmony, meeting expectations, or seeking reassurance from people they perceive as having greater authority.
Together, they explore how these patterns develop within families and relationships, why they often persist even in adulthood, and what begins to change when women learn to trust their own lived experience again—not instead of listening to others, but alongside it.
In her memoir, The Unspoken, Ashley Haseotes chronicles her journey through chronic pain, unresolved trauma, and the long process of learning to trust her own inner experience after years of minimizing it.
Throughout the book, Ashley reflects openly on the therapeutic work we did together and the role it played in helping her reconnect with herself—not by becoming someone new, but by learning to listen more deeply to the parts of herself she had learned to dismiss.
The Unspoken is ultimately a story about healing from emotional invalidation, reclaiming your own voice, and discovering that recovery begins not when we finally become "strong enough," but when we stop abandoning our own experience.
Writing
Finding Your Voice Within Complex Family Systems
Many women grow up learning to trust everyone else's interpretation of reality before their own. They look to parents, family hierarchies, advisors, experts, or other authority figures to determine what's true, gradually becoming disconnected from their own inner compass.
Over time, this can create a painful dilemma: How do you stay connected to the people and systems that matter without losing yourself in the process?
This essay explores the relationship between authenticity, belonging, self-trust, and what it means to develop an inner authority that can stand alongside—not beneath—the voices around you. Read more...
Does My Suffering Count?
There's something I hear often in therapy:
"I feel like I shouldn't be complaining. I have so much to be grateful for."
When someone says this, I tend to be less interested in the problem they're describing than in the moment they interrupt themselves. Because what they're really revealing isn't a lack of gratitude. It's a learned belief that their emotions don't deserve space.
Healing begins not when we prove that our suffering counts, but when we stop requiring proof before meeting ourselves with compassion. Read more...
When Goodness Becomes the Price of Belonging
As a psychotherapist who works with women navigating complex family systems, I've found myself paying increasing attention to conversations in wealth advising spaces. Much of the discussion centers around questions of purpose, stewardship, responsibility, and philanthropy. These are important conversations.
But when I think about the type of client I tend to work with — women who think, feel, and care deeply, and who often put the needs of others before their own — I find myself wondering if there’s another conversation we need to be having first, before I support them in how they navigate wealth responsibly, contribute to the world, or build a sense of purpose.
Because something I've often seen in these women is that they've unconsciously come to believe that, due to their financial privilege, their worthiness must be earned rather than assumed. Read more...
For more writing, visit the archive here.