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

I built Creative Now Therapy for the brilliant ones who have outrun themselves. The ones who know so much about healing and growth and transformation that the actual experience of being transformed has become somewhat elusive. I offer virtual therapy across New York State for the academics, activists, and soul seekers who live at a very high altitude in their own intelligence and are ready to descend, finally, into the body that has been waiting for them.
Ithaca earns its motto. The gorges are everywhere, sudden and dramatic and vertiginous, carved into the landscape by water that has been patient long enough to cut through stone. Cayuga Lake extends thirty-eight miles through the Finger Lakes landscape and carries a quality of stillness that the Cornell campus above it echoes in its own way. Taughannock Falls plunges taller than Niagara. Buttermilk Creek moves through its own gorge in the middle of what feels like ordinary life. The Commons hums with the particular energy of a university town that takes ideas and farmers markets and social justice with equal seriousness. Ithaca is a place that loves to think and, given the right invitation, loves to feel.
And within that community of deep thinking and fierce caring, there is a particular kind of burnout that is very hard to name. The PhD student who cannot stop her mind enough to know what she actually wants. The activist who has given everything to the cause and has very little left for herself. The therapist in training who can hold space for everyone in the program and cannot find the floor beneath her own grief. I work with the therapist in Ithaca, NY who asks the question that the intellect has been circling for years: what would it feel like to actually land?
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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


The mind that has been trained to analyze tends to stay in analysis even when the body is asking for something else entirely. Not because the body is wrong, but because the analytical mind has become the only fluency available. Somatic therapy is where I help those two things find each other. I work with what is happening in the nervous system while we are together. Not the theory of the pattern but the actual lived quality of it right now, in this body, in this breath, in the specific way this conversation is moving through you. The gorges were made by water being patient enough to follow what was already there. I work in a similar way. I offer this work virtually throughout New York State. What opens over time is not a quieter mind. It is a mind that has found something to come home to. A body that has been listened to for long enough to start speaking more clearly. A self that is finally in the same room as its own intelligence.
In a community where words are currency, art therapy offers something genuinely rare: a form of access that words cannot manage, organize, or intellectualize. The creative process does not negotiate with the analytical mind. It simply begins, and what emerges through it tends to be more honest than anything the brilliant mind had already decided it knew. I guide that process in sessions as a way of reaching what the academic life has not made room for. What comes through image and form and mark tends to arrive from somewhere below the dissertation and above the unconscious, a place where the body and the intuition speak together and the result surprises even the person it comes from. No artistic background is needed. The creative mind is not what I am working with here. I am working with the felt intelligence that lives in the body and does not require a framework to be understood.
Academic communities orient toward the future almost as a professional practice. The next paper, the next theory, the next iteration of the argument. The present moment is something to move through in order to arrive at the real work. Gestalt therapy asks what happens when the real work is right here, in this body, in this moment, in the quality of presence available right now. I bring the actual present moment into the center of our work. What is the body doing right now. What is alive in this specific conversation that has not yet been put into a framework. The pattern does not only live in the theory you have built about it. It is operating right here, and here is where it can actually shift. What changes in gestalt therapy is the relationship between the intelligence and the moment. The mind that has been managing the present starts to inhabit it. The body that has been running the analysis starts to actually be here. And from that genuine presence, the work goes deeper than any framework could have taken it.
There is a particular shadow that forms in communities with a strong commitment to certain values: the parts of the self that do not fit the identity. The ambition that feels at odds with the politics. The anger that is bigger than the cause can hold. The desire for something ordinary that the exceptional life has no room for. Shadow work is where I go with you to find what has been living underneath the values. I approach this work without judgment for any of it. The parts that went underground were not wrong. They were intelligent adaptations to communities and identities that had specific requirements. The work is not to dismantle any of it but to add back what was left out, until the picture of who you are is finally complete. For those in Ithaca who have built an identity around their beliefs and their commitments and are quietly exhausted by the weight of living up to it, this work offers something simple and radical: the permission to be also messy, also contradictory, also honestly, deeply, particularly human.

Begin Therapy in Ithaca and Come Down from the Altitude

I hold virtual sessions for clients across New York State and feel a genuine connection to the Finger Lakes communities. If you are in Ithaca, Trumansburg, Dryden, or the surrounding area, I want to hear from you. Because sessions are held online, the space meets you wherever you feel most yourself, whether that is an apartment above the gorge or a house in the hills.

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
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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 Ithaca and the Finger Lakes region. My practice brings somatic therapy, shadow work, art therapy, and gestalt practice into a single space for the brilliant and the burnt-out, the high-achieving and the quietly aching, the ones who know everything about healing and are still searching for the experience of it. 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.