Anxiety, Stress, and Panic
Maybe you overthink everything, brace for the worst, and can't quite get your body to relax. Zaire helps you figure out what your anxiety is really trying to protect you from — and find calmer ways to respond.
Currently accepting new clients
Online Therapy in New York with Zaire Smalls, MHC-LP
Warm, collaborative, culturally responsive therapy for adults and couples navigating anxiety, ADHD, depression, trauma, identity, self-esteem, life transitions, emotional regulation, and relationship stress.
- Online therapy across New York
- Adults and couples
- Insurance accepted
You don't need to have it all figured out before you start. Honestly, almost no one does.
Maybe you just know something feels off. You're anxious. You're stretched thin. You're a little angry, a little checked out, a little unlike yourself lately. Or maybe you're in the middle of a big change, carrying something old, wondering who you're becoming, and watching the same patterns play out in your relationships one more time.
That's plenty to begin with. Zaire Smalls, MHC-LP offers online therapy across New York through Peace Love Wellness. Her approach is steady, unhurried, and culturally responsive. In plain language, that means your family, identity, culture, community, relationships, and lived experience all get to be part of the conversation.
A softer place to start
You can start with what you know.
Most people show up to therapy with only part of the story. That's completely normal.
- You're tired of overthinking everything.
- Focusing feels harder than it should.
- Your relationships keep tripping the same wires — the same fears, the same shutdowns, the same arguments.
- You're carrying something from the past, even if you can't quite put words to it yet.
That is enough to begin.
Therapy with Zaire is a place to slow down and figure out what's actually going on underneath it all. She won't hand you a script or rush you toward some big breakthrough before you're ready. Instead, the two of you look at your patterns together, gently, and build tools that fit the life you're really living. The point is simple: to feel more like yourself again.
Who Zaire may be a fit for
Zaire may be a fit if you are looking for therapy that feels human, steady, and connected to real life.
Zaire works with adults and couples who want support that takes the whole picture seriously, not just the symptoms. She's an especially good match if you're trying to understand yourself more clearly while building real, everyday ways to feel a little steadier.
ADHD and Focus-Related Challenges
ADHD is about so much more than attention. It shapes your confidence, your moods, your follow-through, your relationships, and the story you tell yourself. Zaire's support is practical, kind, and completely free of shame.
Depression and Emotional Exhaustion
When everything feels heavy and muffled and keeping up feels impossible, therapy can help you name what's been weighing on you. From there, you start finding your way back to connection, meaning, and trust in yourself.
Trauma and Emotional Regulation
Zaire's work is trauma-informed, so safety and pace come first. You won't be pushed to retell everything before you're ready. Sometimes it starts simply, by helping your nervous system feel a little less alone with what it's been holding.
Identity and Self-Esteem
If you're questioning who you are, who you're becoming, or why trusting yourself feels so hard, therapy gives you room to explore it — your confidence, your inner critic, the messages from family and culture, and the parts of you still taking shape.
Anger, Boundaries, and Relationship Patterns
Anger usually has a backstory. So does people-pleasing, avoidance, and going quiet. Zaire helps you get curious about these patterns instead of ashamed of them, so you can start responding with more clarity and more choice.
Life Transitions
A new job. A shifting relationship. A change in who you are or what you're responsible for. Even good change can knock the steadiest person off balance. Therapy helps you move through it without losing yourself along the way.
Couples and Relationship Stress
Zaire works with couples who want to slow the conflict down, actually hear each other, and understand the patterns they keep repeating. The goal is more honesty, more repair, and more room for both people. Learn more about couples and relationship therapy.
Anxiety, ADHD & depression
Trauma & identity
Culturally responsive
Couples & individuals
About Zaire
Meet Zaire Smalls, MHC-LP
Zaire Smalls is a limited permit mental health counselor offering online therapy to adults and couples across New York, through Peace Love Wellness.
She's warm, steady, and real, the kind of therapist who makes it easier to stop performing and tell the truth. Her hope is that you feel understood without having to make yourself smaller or simpler first.
There's no one-size-fits-all here. Zaire pays attention to the person in front of her: your history, your relationships, your culture, your family, your strengths, your stress, and the ways you've learned to keep yourself safe.
Her work is culturally responsive and trauma-informed, and that matters to her. Healing doesn't happen in a vacuum. The way you handle anxiety, conflict, grief, anger, or self-doubt may be shaped by family, community, race, culture, relationships, and the environments you've had to adapt to.
In session, she helps you connect insight to actual change. Depending on what you need, she might draw from CBT, relational-cultural therapy, solution-focused work, mindfulness, and a good amount of practical skill-building.
The goal was never to turn you into someone else. It's to help you understand yourself more clearly, move through your life with more choice, and feel genuinely supported along the way.
Read more about Zaire at Peace Love Wellness →Therapy with Zaire
Therapy that makes room for your full context.
You're not a list of symptoms. You're a whole person — shaped by your relationships, your culture, your identity, your family, stress, survival, joy, pressure, and change.
Zaire's approach makes room for all of that.
Together, you may explore:
- The patterns that surface when you're anxious, overwhelmed, angry, or shut down
- The old stories about who you are and what you're allowed to need
- How family, culture, identity, and community have shaped your emotional life
- The coping strategies that kept you safe once but feel limiting now
- Real tools for regulating emotion, communicating, setting boundaries, and understanding yourself
- What more steadiness, self-trust, and connection could actually look like for you
Therapy with Zaire is a collaboration. You don't have to perform, prove anything, or find the perfect words. Just bring what's true, even when it's messy and unfinished.
Culturally responsive care
Care that does not ask you to leave parts of yourself outside the room.
Your mental health doesn't live in a separate box from the rest of your life.
How you learned to handle stress, show emotion, deal with conflict, ask for help, stay strong, or take care of everyone else — so much of that traces back to family roles, cultural expectations, racial identity, where you belong, what was expected of you, your relationships, and the systems you've moved through.
Zaire's work is grounded in the belief that those layers matter.
Culturally responsive therapy isn't about making assumptions about you. It's the opposite — staying curious, listening closely, and leaving room for what's real in your life.
You shouldn't have to translate yourself before you can feel supported.
Online therapy across New York
Online therapy that fits into your actual life.
Zaire sees adults and couples anywhere in New York State, all online. Sessions happen over a secure telehealth platform, so you can meet from wherever feels private and comfortable. Your couch counts.
If you want care that's steady, flexible, and easy to actually fit into your week, online might be exactly right.
- Location
- Online across New York State
- Format
- Individual & couples therapy
- Ages
- Adults
- Language
- English
- Availability
- Currently accepting new clients
- Practice
- Peace Love Wellness
- Credentials
- MHC-LP, supervised clinician
Insurance & payment
Insurance accepted through Peace Love Wellness.
Zaire sees clients through Peace Love Wellness. As a supervised clinician, she takes many of the insurance plans available to MHC-LP clinicians at the practice.
Accepted plans may include:
- Aetna
- Anthem / Empire BlueCross
- Carelon
- Cigna
- EmblemHealth
- MagnaCare
- Meritain
- NYSHIP / The Empire Plan
Coverage shifts depending on your plan, your benefits, and your clinician, so Peace Love Wellness will walk through your insurance and fees at Peace Love Wellness with you before you start.
Important insurance note
Quick heads-up: as an MHC-LP, Zaire can't bill NYCE PPO or UnitedHealthcare / Optum plans. If your insurance isn't a fit for her, Peace Love Wellness can help you find another clinician at the practice who might be a better match.
Working with a supervised clinician
Seeing a supervised clinician can be a really good option — especially if you want thoughtful care, sooner availability, and lower out-of-pocket costs when you're paying without insurance.
Her work is backed by ongoing clinical supervision and held within the larger Peace Love Wellness care team.
Through Peace Love Wellness
A thoughtful match matters.
Starting therapy feels a lot less daunting when you're not sorting through every option on your own.
Zaire works through Peace Love Wellness, a group practice offering relational, trauma-informed, identity-affirming care across New York. Their matching process is built to connect you with a therapist who actually fits — clinically, practically, and in the way you like to relate to people.
If Zaire feels right, the team will walk you through next steps, insurance, and availability.
And if someone else turns out to be a better fit? They'll help you find that person, too.
Start Therapy with ZaireFAQ
Questions Before Starting
Begin online therapy with Zaire.
You don't have to keep carrying all of it by yourself.
Send a few details below and Zaire's team at Peace Love Wellness will follow up about fit, insurance, and availability. No pressure, no commitment.
Thank you — your request is in.
Zaire's team at Peace Love Wellness will reach out soon to talk through next steps, insurance, and availability. If you'd rather get started right now, you can get matched at Peace Love Wellness.