Therapist in Albany, NY | Somatic, Art & Gestalt Therapy

I built Creative Now Therapy for the people who perform stability for a living and have lost track of what it actually feels like inside their own body. I offer virtual therapy across New York State rooted in somatic practice, shadow work, and mystical depth, for the ones whose external life is composed and whose internal life is asking for something they have not yet had permission to name. If that is you, this is where I want to meet you.
Albany carries the particular weight of a capital city, the one that keeps the formal machinery of the state running, the architecture of governance visible in every direction. The Empire State Plaza rises above the river district like a civic monument that cannot be ignored. Washington Park anchors the Center Square neighborhood, where brownstone blocks line the streets and Lark Street pulses with the restaurants and galleries of a community that has always needed somewhere to breathe. The University at Albany and Albany Medical Center bring tens of thousands of students and healthcare workers into a city that is always processing something bigger than itself.
There is a specific kind of exhaustion that forms in professional environments where composure is currency. The state worker who holds complexity all day and has no one to be complicated with at home. The physician who has been taught that asking for help is a liability. The policy advocate who knows exactly how systems fail people and cannot apply that knowledge to herself. I work with the therapist in Albany, NY who goes beneath the professional self, into the body and the sacred, and meets the person who has been waiting behind all of that competence.
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Here’s what our work might look like:

We Begin in the Real Moment


We don’t have to dig through your entire history to start healing,  we begin with what’s happening right now: your breath, your posture, the tightness in your throat, the image you can’t shake.


We Drop Into the Body (and the Beyond)


Together, we drop in slowly and intentionally, tracking sensation, emotion, and the symbolic language of your body. We name what’s been exiled, what’s been performing, and what’s quietly asking to be witnessed.

We Unwind Shame, Self-Attack, and Old Survival Roles


Your body holds the places where you learned to shrink, overgive, or turn against yourself. We track these patterns with compassion until they soften, loosen, and lose authority.


We Integrate the Work Into How You Live, Love, and Lead


Your insights don’t stay in the room, they become embodied. You speak up without collapsing, rest without guilt, show up without masking, and move through your days with more presence and fewer spirals.

Explore my services and specializations


Professional environments teach the body to perform rather than to feel. Over years, that performance becomes involuntary. The holding becomes the baseline. The bracing becomes indistinguishable from who you are. Somatic therapy is where I help the body remember the difference between surviving and actually being here. I work with what the nervous system is doing in real time, the way the breath changes when the conversation reaches something true, the place in the body where the holding lives, the moment of stillness that arrives right before you redirect toward something safer. All of it is language. And once we learn to read it together, things start to shift in ways that insight alone could not produce. I offer this work virtually throughout New York State. What opens over time is not a softening of your competence but a deepening of your access to yourself, the discovery that there is a version of you that does not have to perform in order to belong.
In environments built around language, around argument and policy and the precise use of words, there are things that never get said because they do not have the right format. Art therapy creates a different kind of space: one where the format is irrelevant and the truth can arrive in whatever form it needs to take. I guide the creative process in sessions as a way of accessing what professional life has not made room for. What emerges through image and form tends to be the part of you that has been waiting patiently behind the competence, the sensitivity, the longing, the grief. All of it is welcome here. No artistic background is required and no artistic identity. I am not asking for craft. I am asking for honesty in a medium that the professional self does not control. What tends to arrive through that honesty changes the quality of everything that follows.
Policy work and governance orient the mind constantly toward the future, toward what needs to happen, toward how things could or should be different. Gestalt therapy asks the opposite question: what is happening right now, in this body, in this moment, in the specific way this conversation is moving through you? I work with what is actually alive in the room between us. The body's response to this particular word. The quality of your presence in this specific moment. The pattern is not only in your history or in your plans. It is here, operating in real time, and this is where working with it becomes genuinely possible. What changes in gestalt therapy is not the external life. It is the felt experience of inhabiting it. The body starts to trust what it notices. The reflex begins to soften. And something that has been running on automation starts to become a genuine choice.
Institutional environments have their own kind of shadow: the rage that gets translated into policy work, the grief that gets called burnout, the parts of yourself that were quietly retired in the process of becoming professional enough to be taken seriously. Shadow work is how I go looking for what got left behind in that process. I approach this work with genuine reverence for what went underground. Those parts were not failures. They were adaptations, brilliant and strategic and protective, made for rooms that could not hold the full picture. The work is not to judge what was put away but to retrieve it and bring it back into the whole. For those in Albany who have organized their identities around what they can offer professionally and have very little private space to be honestly themselves, this work offers something rare: a room where what you know how to do is not the point, and who you actually are is everything.

Start Therapy in Albany and Stop Performing What You Don't Feel

I hold virtual sessions for clients across New York State, with a particular connection to the Capital Region communities. If you are in Albany, Delmar, Guilderland, or the surrounding area, I want to hear from you. Because sessions are held online, the space meets you wherever you feel most like yourself in the Albany area.

What clients say...

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When I first met Cris, I was at a moment in my life where I was unsure of every possible direction. All of my decisions were based on fear and a recent change in my health had me wondering what kind of life I would have and holy crap I'm going to die. Being in front of Cris's intellect, warmth and grace literally gave me strength I didn't know was there and the assurance of my ability to navigate conflict with grace and evenness. A truly gifted guide and stellar human being.

- Grey
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Cris has been integral to my growth. She is incredibly kind, understanding, and supportive, while also challenging me to face things I may have been ignoring/dismissing. I’m really grateful to have been able to work with her.

- Autumn
Five black stars in a row on a white background

Cris is a wonderful therapist. As a pediatrician, I was prone to over-thinking. She has helped me to work through my thoughts and to be in tune with my body.

- Lisa

hi i'm crisCristina Maria Fort Garcés-Somatic Therapist & Nervous System Healing

I am a licensed psychotherapist and somatic guide offering virtual therapy across New York State, including Albany and the wider Capital Region. My work brings somatic therapy, shadow work, art therapy, and gestalt practice into a space where the professionally composed and privately complex can finally stop managing and start returning to themselves. Nearly twenty years of clinical experience inform this work. Not everything that aches in you needs fixing. Some parts are asking to be seen, remembered, and reclaimed.

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FAQ about my psychotherapy services

  • How does virtual therapy work?

    Sessions are held weekly through a secure, HIPAA-compliant Zoom link. You only need a private space, a stable connection, and a device with a camera and microphone. Each session lasts 45 minutes and is designed to build trust and continuity, allowing the process to unfold with depth and safety.



  • What kind of therapy do you offer?

    I offer somatic therapy, gestalt therapy, shadow work therapy, and eco art therapy. Each modality blends intuitive insight, spiritual reflection, and body awareness to support deep healing and self-understanding.



  • What if I need to cancel or reschedule a session?

    Please give at least 48 hours’ notice if you need to cancel or reschedule. Late cancellations will be charged in full. You may cancel up to four times per year with proper notice at no charge. This structure helps maintain the flow and depth of our work together.



  • What if I’m not sure this is the right fit?

    You can book a free 15-minute consultation to see how it feels to work together. This conversation helps us sense alignment before beginning the process.



  • With whom do you work and where?

    I work with women and gender-expansive adults based in NYC metro area and serving clients across New York. My clients often seek clarity, healing, and energetic balance as they move through transitions or rediscover their purpose.