Therapist in New Paltz, NY | Somatic, Art & Gestalt Therapy

If you have ever felt too much for ordinary therapy and too grounded for the purely spiritual, you already know the specific loneliness of standing between those two worlds. I built Creative Now Therapy for that exact threshold. I work virtually with healers, therapists, and soul seekers across New York State who are done explaining themselves, done splitting their sacred life from their clinical one, and ready for a space that holds all of it without flinching.
New Paltz sits at the foot of the Shawangunk Ridge in Ulster County, and something about this place has always drawn people who refuse to be ordinary. The Gunks rise dramatically to the west, their ancient quartzite faces calling climbers and seekers from across the world. Mohonk Mountain House keeps watch from the ridge above. The Wallkill River moves quietly through the valley below, and along Huguenot Street, some of the oldest surviving stone houses in North America still stand, grounded and particular and refusing to disappear. SUNY New Paltz brings a constant pulse of questioning and becoming, and the farmers markets and crystal shops and herbalist studios that line the main roads signal a community that has long taken the inner life seriously.
And underneath all of that openness, there is still a particular kind of loneliness that the tools do not always reach. The yoga teacher whose body is on the mat every morning and whose grief has not moved in years. The student who can name every trauma response and cannot feel the floor beneath her own feet. The practitioner who knows exactly what she needs and still cannot give it to herself. I work with those people. As a therapist in New Paltz, NY who brings the nervous system and the sacred into the same room, I am less interested in helping you understand your patterns and more interested in helping your body actually release them.
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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


There is a version of healing that knows everything and still cannot find the floor. You have the insight. You have the language. You can name the pattern in the moment it is happening and watch yourself do it anyway. The problem is not in the understanding. It is in where the pattern actually lives, deep in the body, below the reach of any amount of knowing. In somatic therapy, I work with what your body is doing in real time. The breath that shortens before a particular subject. The hands that grip in a moment that should feel safe. The place in the chest where the grief has been living since before it had a story. I track those things with you and we learn, together, what your nervous system has been trying to say in the only language it has. I offer this work virtually throughout New York State. What shifts over time is not just the tension in the body but the relationship to it, the slow and genuine discovery that your body is not something to be managed but something to be listened to, a source of intelligence that has been speaking since long before you started trying to fix it.
New Paltz has always made room for the creative impulse, and I find that many of the people who end up in my practice carry a relationship with making that runs deeper than they let most people see. Art therapy meets that part of you directly. Not as a hobby or an add-on to the real work, but as a different kind of access point to what lives underneath the words. I guide the creative process in sessions as a way of reaching what conversation has been circling but not quite landing. Something in the hands knows what the mind has been protecting. When we give it permission to move, what surfaces tends to be more honest and more precise than anything talking alone could produce. The image, the mark, the color choice all speak. No artistic background is needed and no identity as a maker. I am not interested in the product. I am interested in the process and what it reveals. What arrives through that space tends to be older and truer than anything that had a name before we started, and once it has been seen, it can finally begin to move.
Many of the people I work with in a college and academic community like New Paltz are extraordinarily good at thinking. They can analyze their childhood, theorize their patterns, and explain their psychology with remarkable precision. And still the body is still bracing. Still the same conversation keeps happening. Still something is not shifting. Gestalt therapy is where I work with the gap between knowing and actually being different. I am not particularly interested in what happened. I am interested in what is happening right now, in this breath, in the way your body just moved, in what you almost said and then pulled back from. The pattern is not only in your history. It is alive in this room, in how you are inhabiting this conversation, in what your body does in the moment before something true needs to be said. Over time, this kind of present-moment honesty starts to change things in ways that analysis never quite reached. The reflex loosens. The body begins to trust what it notices. What emerges is not a better version of the story you have been telling about yourself but a genuinely different way of being in your own life.
There is a particular kind of shadow that forms in communities built for openness: the parts of yourself you could not bring into the circle, the anger that did not fit the vibe, the ambition that felt unseemly, the grief that overstayed its welcome in a space that was supposed to be healed by now. Those parts do not disappear. They go underground. And I am interested in going there with you. Shadow work is not about dragging painful material into the light for the sake of it. It is about recovering what was buried alongside the pain, the aliveness, the creativity, the desire, the full range of who you actually are beneath the version you learned was safe to show. I have come to believe that the shadow is not the enemy. It is where the medicine is. For those in New Paltz who live in a community that celebrates healing and still feel privately untouched by all of it, I want to offer this: you are not behind. You are not broken. You may simply be carrying parts that have never had the right container. That is what I am here to build with you.

Start Therapy in New Paltz and Let All of Yourself In

I offer virtual sessions to clients across New York State, and I am deeply connected to the Ulster County communities I call home. If you are in New Paltz, Highland, Rosendale, or the wider mid-Hudson Valley, I want to hear from you. Sessions travel with you to wherever you feel most yourself, whether that is a loft above Main Street or a farmhouse at the foot of the Shawangunk Ridge.

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, somatic guide, and mystical practitioner offering virtual therapy across New York State, including New Paltz and the surrounding Hudson Valley. I have spent nearly twenty years in clinical rooms and a lifetime in sacred ones, and my work draws from somatic therapy, gestalt practice, art therapy, and shadow work to hold the full range of who you are. The sensitive. The spiritually curious. The one who has done everything right and still feels the ache. 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.