About
Lana Hurst, MHC-LP, MA, MDiv (she/her)
I didn’t set out to become a therapist—I found my way here through deep questioning, personal transformation, and a commitment to understanding the complexity of human experience. My own journey has been shaped by wrestling with identity, faith, and belonging. I know what it’s like to feel both the pull of expectation and the longing to step into something truer.
Before becoming a therapist, I worked in faith communities, sitting with people in their deepest moments of questioning and life transitions. That experience continues to shape my approach—not in offering answers, but in making space for the questions themselves. Over time, my work expanded to focus on trauma, gender identity, and the ways we come to know ourselves in the wake of rupture—when what we once relied on no longer holds, and something new is trying to emerge.
My Approach
I believe healing isn’t about returning to an unbroken past but about forging a new relationship with yourself—one that is more connected, spacious, and attuned to the parts of you that have been hidden or cast aside. My work is grounded in psychodynamic therapy, EMDR, and Internal Family Systems (IFS) within a liberatory, anti-oppressive framework. I help clients explore unconscious patterns, engage with discomfort as a source of transformation, and move toward a more expansive sense of self.
I specialize in working with:
LGBTQ+ folks, particularly trans and gender-expansive clients
Those navigating religious trauma and the impact of rupture in relationships, identity, or belief
People exploring identity formation, life transitions, and embodiment
Individuals seeking to make sense of their inner world in a way that feels both deep and liberating
My Background & Training
I am a limited permit mental health counselor (MHC-LP) in New York with a background in clinical practice, spiritual care, and academic inquiry. I hold a Master’s in Mental Health Counseling with Spiritual Integration from Fordham University and a Master of Divinity from Princeton Theological Seminary.
I conceptualize people and the world we live in using psychoanalytic, trauma, decolonial, feminist, queer, and anti-racism frameworks.
My therapeutic approach employs the following modalities:
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) for reprocessing negative beliefs about oneself, trauma, and painful memories
Internal Family Systems (IFS) for working with internal conflicts and disowned parts of the self
Psychodynamic and depth-oriented therapy, exploring how past experiences and repressed experiences, feelings, and desires shape the present
Why I Do This Work
I do this work because I know how transformative it can be to be seen in your fullness—to have space to wrestle, to reimagine, and to connect more honestly with yourself. Therapy, at its best, isn’t about fixing what’s broken—it’s about making room for everything you are and everything you are becoming.