CENTER CITY PHILADELPHIA, PA · TELEHEALTH STATEWIDE
Christina Binder, MSW, LSW
“Therapy can be meaningful without always feeling heavy.”
Christina Binder is a Licensed Social Worker at CPA Counseling’s Center City Philadelphia office, also seeing clients by secure telehealth across Pennsylvania. She works with adolescents, adults, and couples on anxiety, depression, trauma, ADHD, identity, grief, and life transitions — bringing warmth, creativity, and humor to work that does not have to feel heavy to be serious.
WHO CHRISTINA WORKS WITH
Who she’s for
Christina works with adolescents, teens, young adults, adults, seniors, couples, and veterans. Women, men, LGBTQ+ clients, and college students. In person in Center City or by telehealth.
why work with Christina
It does not have to feel heavy
Christina believes therapy can be meaningful without always feeling heavy. Hard conversations happen — and so do connection, laughter, fresh perspective, and the occasional discovery of something about yourself you had not noticed. Both are allowed in the same room.
HOW CHRISTINA WORKS
Nine approaches, plus room for the unexpected
Her phrase is that her toolbox includes CBT, DBT, behavioral activation, values-based work, and relational approaches — and that she leaves room for creativity, humor, and the unexpected turns a good conversation can take. The second half is not filler; it is a method.
CONDITIONS TREATED
What Christina treats – who Christina sees
- Anxiety
- Depression
- Trauma
- ADHD
- Marriage & Couples
- Life Transitions
- Grief & Loss
- LGBTQ+ & Identity
- Disability & Neurodivergence
- Caregiver Stress
- School / Academic
- Self-Esteem
For couples
Gottman and EFT — both, not one
“Therapy can be meaningful without always feeling heavy.”
CARE PHILOSOPHY
Hard conversations. And also laughter.
Christina’s stated belief is that therapy can be meaningful without always feeling heavy. With a background in social work, theater, and youth development, she brings warmth, creativity, and humor to the work — which is a deliberate position, not a personality note.
She sees therapy as a collaboration rather than a place where the therapist has all the answers. She is curious about where you have been, respects the ways you have learned to get through, and is hopeful about where you might go next. Together you slow down, make connections, try something new, and work out what actually fits your life.
Her approach is systemic and relational: she looks at what is happening within you and at the relationships, families, communities, and larger systems shaping your life. Therapy with her can include hard conversations, and it can also include connection, laughter, and the occasional discovery of something you had not noticed about yourself.
ABOUT CHRISTINA
People, and their stories
Christina Binder believes therapy can be meaningful without always feeling heavy. With a background in social work, theater, and youth development, she brings warmth, creativity, and humor to her work with adolescents, adults, and couples.
Her path to therapy has always been about people and their stories. She started out as a theater teaching artist, working with young people in schools and community settings, then spent more than eight years supporting veterans experiencing homelessness and major life transitions.
She earned her MSW from Temple University and completed her advanced clinical practicum at Council for Relationships, providing individual and couples therapy for anxiety, depression, relationship concerns, and life transitions. That training shaped her systemic, relational approach — looking not only at what is happening within a person, but at the relationships, families, communities, and larger systems that shape a life.
Christina is especially drawn to work around anxiety, depression, identity, and those moments when you know something needs to change but are not sure what comes next. She also has a strong interest in disability and accessibility, and in how the spaces and relationships around us can create barriers or help us thrive. She is trained in CPT and SBIRT and certified in Adult Mental Health First Aid, and sees clients at the Center City Philadelphia office and by telehealth across Pennsylvania.
Years in the Field
Center City & Telehealth
Meaningful, Not Heavy
Warmth, creativity & humor
Personalized Care Plans
No program commitments required
CONDITION GUIDE
Therapy guides from Christina Binder
Mental Health
Why Insight Doesn’t Always Change Behavior
You can fully understand a pattern — why you do it, where it comes from, what it costs — and still repeat it, because insight alone doesn’t change behavior. Old patterns are automatic and live in the nervous system, not just the thinking brain, and self-criticism tends to make change harder, not easier. Change is a practice built on reps and self-compassion, not a single decision. Dana Werner, LMSW helps clients bridge the gap between knowing and doing at CPA Counseling in Pittsburgh’s Robinson area and by telehealth across Pennsylvania.
Addiction
Addiction Therapy in Pittsburgh’s South Hills
Addiction therapy can address far more than stopping substance use. It can help you understand what alcohol or drugs have been doing for you, develop other ways to manage difficult emotions, and begin building a life that is no longer organized around using. Nicole Duley, LPC provides therapy for substance use and related concerns through CPA Counseling’s South Hills office in Pittsburgh and by telehealth across Pennsylvania.
Anxiety
When the Feeling Arrives Before the Thought
Sometimes your body reacts before your mind catches up — your chest tightens, you snap, you’re suddenly not okay and nothing happened in between. That isn’t a malfunction; the body’s threat response simply runs faster than conscious thought. Body-based (“somatic”) regulation skills — slow out-breaths, orienting, grounding — help you settle in the moment. Jaye Sobieski, MS, NCC, EMDR trained, works with trauma at CPA Counseling in the South Hills and by telehealth across Pennsylvania.