Psychotherapy in Downtown Chicago
On paper, you have it all together; internally, you’re barely staying afloat.
Results-oriented psychotherapy and couples counseling in downtown Chicago for high-achieving individuals and couples, from early career through retirement. Sucking it up is not a strategy. It’s just a delay.
Start a private conversation-
In person in the Loop
30 N. Michigan Avenue, directly across from Millennium Park and Millennium Station.
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30 years of experience
Practicing since 1996, with a private practice established in 2008.
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One clinician, start to finish
No intake coordinators, no handoffs, no one else on your file.
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Evenings and weekends
For when your time is at a premium: sessions until 10 PM on weekdays, and on weekends.
Most people who call me are at a decision point
Something has to be decided, and you can’t get your head clear enough to make the call. A marriage that may or may not survive. A drink that became three. A job that looks enviable from the outside and costs too much from the inside. A breakup you did not see coming and cannot climb out from under.
You are probably managing it well enough that nobody has said anything. That is part of the problem. Nothing external is forcing the question, so the question stays yours, usually late at night.
Most of my clients think for a living. A lot of them have never struggled with anything the way they struggle with this, and that is its own particular type of misery.
Where we focus
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Couples and Addiction Recovery
When the drinking or the using is in the marriage, most therapists treat one and refer out the other. I treat both in the same room. Private intensives available.
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Alcohol and Substance Use, Privately
Confidential outpatient work for people whose careers are the reason they have not called anyone yet. No group room. No program schedule. No thirty days away.
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Couples Therapy and Affair Recovery
For couples in the first weeks after discovery, and for couples who have been circling the same argument for nine years.
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Therapy for Men
Irritability, emotional shutdown, sexuality, and the pressure to have it all handled. Many of the men who come in have tried therapy before and found it too careful.
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Therapy for High Achievers
Burnout, perfectionism, imposter feelings, and adult ADHD, and no one you can actually talk to. We get to what is behind the drive, including the guilt nobody expects to find underneath it.
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Anxiety and Depression
Panic, rumination, the 3 a.m. spiral, the low mood you stopped mentioning because nobody knew what to say.
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What I hold that most practices split apart
I am a CADC with Gottman Method Training through Level 3. When addiction is part of the picture, I treat the dependency and the relationship together instead of sending one of you somewhere else. This combination is genuinely rare in a solo practice, and it’s why a lot of couples end up here after being turned down elsewhere.
I also do couples therapy, discernment counseling, and divorce mediation, so a couple can work toward repair or toward a separation with the same person, without starting over with a stranger halfway through the hardest year of their life. I take complex and dual-diagnosis cases that boutique practices screen out. I spent 13 years in hospital psychiatry before I went private, which means nothing you tell me is going to scare me off.
I work with high achievers, perfectionists, and people who quietly doubt themselves. I know this territory from the inside. I hold myself to standards that aren’t always kind. I didn’t learn about the inner critic from a textbook, so when you tell me yours is loud, I won’t treat it as an abstraction. I’m direct, action-oriented, and challenging when necessary, balanced with fierce investment and personal warmth. I recognize patterns quickly; I remember what you tell me, and I go out of my way to ensure you feel fully seen without judgment. What you get in the room with me is authentic, a little irreverent, and as raw as life itself. Nothing about this is transactional. I’ll have your back.
The other side
You have a place where you don’t have to perform, impress, or hold the room together.
Your worth stops riding on your last achievement.
The same fight stops costing you the weekend. You learn its meaning and have the tools to handle it on your own.
The drinking, the pills, or whatever has been getting you through, loosens its grip.
Your body comes off high alert. You sleep past 3 a.m.
The decision gets made. You answer the question that’s been sitting on you for years, and you stop living in between.
What working together looks like
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We begin with a free fifteen-minute conversation. You tell me what you’re struggling with; I’ll share how I’d approach it, and if we’re on the same page, we get to work.
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Your initial session is longer than usual: 75 minutes for individuals, 90 for couples. The first meeting lays the foundation for our therapeutic relationship; there’s too much ground to cover in 60 minutes.
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We build the plan collaboratively around your family history, culture, strengths, situation, hopes, and what you want to change.
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I check in session by session, using Feedback-Informed Treatment to tailor therapy as we go, so if the approach or blend of approaches we’re using isn’t producing the desired outcome, we pivot in week three instead of in month seven.
I’m not a therapist who merely sits and nods. My purpose is to help you make lasting progress and meaningful change. Whether we work together for a 2-day intensive, a few focused months, or a few years depends on what your situation calls for. We’ll discuss a timeline early on and revisit it regularly.
The first step is a conversation, not a commitment
You don’t need to have it all figured out before you call, and you don’t need to be certain of your next move. We’ll start wherever you are.
Start a private conversationIn person in the Chicago Loop. Secure telehealth across Illinois and Florida. Evening and weekend appointments.
Wendi Lev, LCSW, ACSW, CADC-Lev Counseling, 30 N. Michigan Ave, Suite 1117, Chicago, IL 60602