Therapist in Nassau County, NY | Somatic, Art & Gestalt Therapy

I built Creative Now Therapy for the ones who have done everything right and still feel the distance between the life they assembled and the person they actually are. I offer virtual therapy across New York State rooted in somatic practice, mystical inquiry, and shadow work, for the healers and deep feelers who are ready to stop performing wellness and start actually experiencing it.
Nassau County stretches across the western half of Long Island in layers that tell different stories depending on where you are standing. The north shore carries the Gold Coast estates and the salt water of Long Island Sound. Jones Beach extends its magnificent miles of Atlantic shoreline to the south. In between are the towns that most Nassau residents actually live in, the LIRR corridors, the quiet streets of Garden City and Manhasset and Oyster Bay, the more working-class neighborhoods of Hempstead and Elmont, Hofstra University and Adelphi's garden campus, the density of a suburban world that touches the city and then pulls back, over and over again, train by train, exit by exit.
What lives underneath that suburban texture is something I recognize immediately: the performance of fine. The external life organized around achievement and appearance and the right schools and the right neighborhood and a particular version of having arrived. And underneath all of that, a person who has not been asked in a very long time how she actually is. I work with the therapist in Nassau County, NY who goes beneath the performance, into the body and the sacred, and meets what has been waiting there.
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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 body that commutes, that manages, that maintains the appearance of having it together, develops a particular relationship with itself over time. It learns to be useful. To perform. To get through. And somewhere in all of that getting through, the felt sense of actually being inside itself goes very quiet. Somatic therapy is where I help that body remember the difference. I track what the nervous system is doing in real time. The breath that has learned to live very high in the chest. The shoulders that have been raised since sometime years ago and have simply forgotten to come down. The moment of genuine stillness that flickers in and out before the list reasserts itself. I work with those things with you, slowly and honestly, until the body starts to trust that being still is not the same as falling behind. I offer this work virtually throughout New York State, which means Nassau County residents can access it without another commute, another obligation, another thing to fit into a schedule that is already beyond full. What opens over time is a quality of presence in your own body that the performance was never designed to include.
Many people in suburban communities carry a relationship with their own creativity that was quietly set aside at some point in the process of building a practical life. The art school that became a business degree. The novel in the Notes app. The impulse to make something that never found a container. Art therapy is where I meet that impulse directly. I use the creative process in sessions as a way of accessing what the practical mind has organized away. Not as a hobby and not as a performance of self-care. As a genuine form of excavation, a way of reaching the parts of the self that have been patient and underground and waiting for someone to actually ask them what they know. No artistic background is needed and no identity as a creative person. I am asking for something far more basic than art. I am asking for the willingness to let something emerge that planning and management and doing it all right could not produce. What tends to arrive through that willingness is older and truer than anything that had a name before we started.
When the external life is organized around performance, the present moment becomes something to get through rather than something to inhabit. There is always the next thing to optimize, the next milestone to reach, the next way to be better at the version of you that the world is watching. Gestalt therapy inverts all of that. It asks only what is actually here. I bring the present moment into the center of our sessions. Not the future version and not the history. What is alive in the body right now. What the posture is doing. What the quality of this specific exchange is saying about what has not yet been said. The pattern is not only in the past. It is operating right here, and here is where I work with it. What shifts over time in gestalt therapy is the felt relationship with the present moment itself. The reflex toward management begins to soften. The body starts to register something other than vigilance. What remains is a quality of genuine presence in your own life that no amount of achievement could have produced.
The suburban success story has its own particular shadow: the parts of the self that did not make the move into the right neighborhood. The ambition that felt too unconventional. The grief that felt too messy. The desire for something wilder and truer than any spreadsheet of accomplishments could contain. Shadow work is where I go to find those parts. This is not about dismantling the life you have built. It is about recovering the person inside it. The one who had longings before the longings became a strategy. The one whose sensitivity was a source of information before it became a liability. Shadow work returns what was left behind in the becoming. For those in Nassau County who have arrived at a life that was supposed to feel like enough and are quietly unsettled by the discovery that it does not, I want to offer this: that unsettledness is not ingratitude. It is intelligence. And it is exactly where we begin.

Begin Therapy in Nassau County and Stop Performing Fine

I hold virtual sessions for clients across New York State, with a genuine connection to the Long Island communities of Nassau County. Whether you are in Garden City, Great Neck, Manhasset, Hempstead, or anywhere across the county, I want to hear from you. Because sessions are held online, the space meets you wherever you feel most yourself.

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 Nassau County and the broader Long Island community. My work brings somatic therapy, shadow work, art therapy, and gestalt practice into a space where the externally successful and privately aching can finally stop performing and start returning to themselves. Nearly twenty years of clinical and sacred 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.