Valarie MercedLMHC

Valarie is a licensed mental health counselor and trained sexologist — a genuinely uncommon combination in New York. Most couples therapists refer sexual concerns out. Most sex therapists don't do deep attachment work. Valarie does both, in the same room, at the same time.

Her clinical work integrates Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) with humanistic, psychodynamic, CBT, and mindfulness practices. She describes her style as gentle yet direct: warm enough that both partners settle, honest enough that the real thing finally gets named. Her practice is trauma-informed and culturally sensitive, and she is unambiguous that everyone deserves to be valued and understood.

Her specialty is the territory most people find hardest to talk about — healthy sexuality, desire, relationship dynamics, and alternative lifestyles. She works with ethical non-monogamy, polyamory and intimate networks, kink communities, sex workers, and paraphilias, and she does it without pathologizing, flinching, or asking you to translate your life into terms she finds comfortable.

Valarie also designs and leads BIPS's Couples & Sex Therapy Intensives — a focused, immersive format that condenses months of progress into one or two days. Beyond her own caseload, she is a clinical supervisor at BIPS, guiding other clinicians' sex therapy and couples cases.