Sarah Saffian, LMSW, MFA, is an adoptee, an author, a teacher, and an IAC Center Counselor. Her memoir, Ithaka , chronicles the experience of being found by her birth family. She teaches memoir at Sarah Lawrence College and the Iowa Summer Writing Festival, and works individually as a writing coach (saffian.com). Sarah earned her BA in English from Brown, her MFA in creative writing from Columbia, and her MSW from New York University. Her clinical experience includes individually counseling adoptees, birth mothers, and adoptive parents and facilitating a support group for adult adoptees, at Spence-Chapin Services; and individually counseling undergraduate and graduate students and facilitating CBT and DBT groups, at NYU’s Counseling and Wellness Services.
With IAC Center Director Joni Mantell, Sarah is creating a series of support groups for members of the adoption constellation, which employ creative writing as a therapeutic tool. The combination of Sarah’s experience with the memoir and creative writing processes and her therapeutic training lends a unique depth to her capacity to understand her clients and to help them to find their voice.
Sarah works with all adoption triad members in the New York City office.
Specialization:
- Post-Adoption Counseling
- Adult Adoptees
- Teen Adoptees
- Birth Parents
- Adoptive Parents
- Pre-Adoption Counseling
- Transracial/Transcultural Adoption Issues
- Open Adoption Issues
- Opening Up Adoptions
- Therapeutic Writing
- Psychotherapy, CBT, DBT