About Andrew Plisner, LCSW
Relational. Grounded. Curious.
I offer depth-oriented therapy and consultation for adults, couples, families, therapists, and organizations centered on understanding the patterns that shape how we experience ourselves and our relationships.
Why I Chose This Work
Healing and the human experience have long fascinated me. Prior to becoming a therapist, I found myself drawn toward understanding why people become disconnected from themselves, and what supports them to feel alive again.
My early experiences of disconnection from myself shaped my own path. I learned to adapt by pushing forward, finding a sense of competence through external validation, and learning to rely heavily on myself. Those strategies helped me navigate the world, but beneath them was a deep longing for connection and belonging, both within myself and the world.
It was through my own experiences of relationally grounded therapy and mentorship that I began to understand these patterns differently—not as something wrong with me, but as intelligent ways I had adapted to protect myself and stay connected. That shift profoundly influenced both the person and the therapist I continue to become.
My work grew from that experience. I became increasingly interested not simply in helping people understand themselves, but in creating the kind of relationship where they can become curious about what they have learned to protect, reconnect with parts of themselves that have been pushed aside, and discover new possibilities for how they relate to themselves and others.
That, ultimately, is what keeps me committed to this work: creating spaces where people can feel genuinely seen without being reduced to a diagnosis or treated as something that needs to be fixed.
Healing isn’t about fixing what’s wrong.
It’s about discovering what’s been protecting you.
You understand yourself well — but insight hasn’t changed everything.
You can explain where your patterns come from, yet find yourself returning to the same anxiety, self-doubt, disconnection, or relational struggles.
You’ve learned how to function, achieve, or care for others — sometimes at the expense of yourself.
From the outside, you may appear capable and grounded while privately feeling exhausted, alone, uncertain, or disconnected from what you actually want.
You notice yourself becoming someone different in relationships.
You may pull away when you want closeness, over-accommodate to preserve connection, become reactive or guarded, or struggle to stay connected to yourself when another person matters deeply.
You’re tired of treating your reactions as problems to eliminate.
You want to understand what your anxiety, shame, anger, withdrawal, perfectionism, or self-criticism may have been trying to accomplish — and discover whether you still need to live that way.
You want something deeper than learning another set of coping skills.
You’re looking for therapy that makes room for complexity: your history, relationships, body, emotions, contradictions, strengths, and the parts of you that may not yet have had space to emerge.
What You Can Expect Working Together
You won’t be expected to arrive with the right thing to talk about.
We can begin with whatever is present — including uncertainty, silence, ambivalence, or not knowing where to start.
We’ll slow down enough to notice what’s happening beneath the story.
Alongside what you think about an experience, we may become curious about what happens emotionally, relationally, and in your body as we talk about it.
I won’t push you toward vulnerability before it feels possible.
We’ll pay attention to the ways you protect yourself without treating those protections as resistance or something we need to overcome.
I’ll be engaged with you, not simply observing from a distance.
I’ll offer reflections, ask questions, notice patterns, and share what I’m seeing while leaving room for you to tell me when something doesn’t fit.
We’ll pay attention to what happens between us, too.
Therapy itself can become a place to notice expectations, fears, needs, boundaries, and ways of relating as they emerge in real time.
The goal isn’t to become a better-managed version of yourself.
It’s to develop greater freedom in how you relate to yourself, other people, and the life you want to inhabit.
What Matters Most To Me
My intention is to accompany you with warmth, steadiness, and respect — meeting you where you are, and supporting reconnection with parts of yourself that may have been left behind in response to early life experiences.
Presence
I believe therapy asks us to be genuinely present with one another, not simply applying techniques from a distance.
Curiosity
I strive to approach even the most confusing or self-defeating patterns with interest rather than judgment.
Humility
I don’t assume that my training makes me the expert on your experience. Therapy is something we discover together.
Depth
I’m deeply interested in what lives beneath symptoms: the conflicts, adaptations, relationships, and longings that shape how we experience ourselves.
Respect
I hold deep respect for the ways people have learned to survive, even when those strategies eventually become painful or limiting.
Credentials
Master of Social Work, Silberman School of Social Work (2016)
Licensed Clinical Social Worker
NARM Training
NeuroAffective Relational Model Therapist Certification (2023)
NeuroAffective Relational Model Master Therapist Certification (2024)
NeuroAffective Relational Model Post-Masters Certification (2025)
NeuroAffective Relational Model Fellow Certificate Program (2026 – 2027)
Additional Training
Interpersonal Neurobiology Comprehensive Certificate Course (2023)
Complex Trauma Training Center Intersubjective & Transpersonal SPACE training (2025 – 2026)
Polyvagal Institute Comprehensive Polyvagal Certificate Course (2025 – 2026
If this resonates with you,
I welcome you to reach out.
I offer a complimentary consultation to explore what brings you to therapy, answer questions, and get a sense of whether working together might feel like a good fit.
Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm ET
andrew@andrewplisner.com