Heathrow Psychology

At Heathrow Psychology, children, adults, couples, and families can get help in the setting that best meets their needs. Therapy is delivered when and where you are most comfortable – at Heathrow Psychology’s Lake Mary office, in your home, or out in the real world. 

Partners Dr. Erica Karlinsky and Bob O’Brien take an innovative approach to helping patients. Dr. Karlinsky has been practicing psychology for more than 30 years, and she and Bob partnered to open Heathrow Psychology in 2021. They work with a variety of clients from elementary-aged children using play therapy to clients struggling with OCD, panic disorder, other anxiety-related disorders, and everything in between.

Therapy generally takes place in the office, however, there are times when non-traditional methods are used to help clients. It is not uncommon to see Heathrow Psychology therapists working in crowded stores with clients who suffer from social anxiety or to see the team using intensive therapy to help individuals and couples in crisis.

Bob and Dr. Karlinsky find that intensive therapy (5-7 hours per day for 3-4 days per week, sometimes in a client’s home) is often far more effective than traditional weekly, hour-long sessions. This therapy is based on the Syrona Method created by Dr. Kathy Kelly, a groundbreaker in the field of mental-health therapy. This approach allows clients to address the real issues – the underlying emotions, the conflicts, behavior patterns, and problems that need repair – as opposed to putting Band-Aids on the crisis of the week. This type of therapy requires a great amount of creativity, flexibility, and clinical skill.

“Dr. Kelly’s approach to treatment changed everything for me,” says Dr. Karlinsky, who adopted this methodology several years ago and has not looked back.

An innovative approach to couples’ therapy at Heathrow Psychology is intensive couples’ therapy in clients’ homes.  Dr. Karlinsky and Bob will work with the couple together and individually to help them.

“Many patients feel more comfortable and less intimidated in their own home than they do in the office,” says Dr. Karlinsky.

Thanks to this innovative method, patients see progress in days rather than months.

For the practice, focusing on emotions helps the client get to the root cause of the problem.

“At Heathrow Psychology, we get to the emotions that drive behavior and resulting problematic patterns,” says Dr. Karlinsky. “We do not just do talk therapy, nor do we validate clients so they feel better in the session, we help people finally heal old wounds so that they feel better for a lifetime, not just the moment.

Dr. Karlinsky sums this up poetically, “The only way to heal is to feel.”