About
Mandeville Mental Health Counseling
Let us meet you where you are and help you become the best version of yourself you can be. Our goal is to help you move forward with less stress, less pain, and more joy!
Meet Julie Keffer, LMHC-D, child therapist and EMDR therapist in Oyster Bay.
I believe therapy is a collaborative process of discovery—a space where you feel safe, heard, and supported. Together, we’ll explore your strengths and uncover what may be holding you back from living your best life. From there, we’ll work on practical problem-solving strategies and develop coping skills that fit your unique needs.
I bring an empathetic and direct approach to every session, emphasizing the importance of self-care and helping clients of all ages incorporate it into their daily lives. With an eclectic theoretical orientation and a friendly, accepting nature, I draw on my experience in bereavement and special education to understand and support people navigating loss in all its forms.
My life experience informs my practice:
As a parent I understand the challenges that come with raising children into adulthood.
As a spouse, I understand the challenges that come with building a life with someone, including coparenting.
As a special education advocate and parent of two special needs young adult women, I am familiar with navigating the unfamiliar, ever-changing landscape of disability advocacy.
As a former teacher, I understand how difficult it is to get a child from kindergarten through the end of high school.
As an end-of-life doula, I am sensitive to the challenges that come with navigating chronic and terminal illnesses, the loss of a loved one, and finding ways to move forward after death.
Fun Facts About Me
I love to travel.
I’m learning French!
I have slept in Cinderella’s Castle in Disney World!
Who Julie Keffer Works With
I love working with clients of all ages and from all backgrounds, especially:
Young adults and adults dealing with grief and trauma. EMDR can be an incredibly effective solution—keep reading to learn more about how it works.
Young children under seven. I focus on teaching distress tolerance, impulse control, and resilience. I work closely with parents as well, helping them support their children and manage behaviors at home.
People navigating self esteem issues. I encourage my clients to speak kindly to themselves and model emotional regulation and positive self talk for themselves and their children.
What is EMDR?
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) is an evidence-based therapy designed to help people heal from trauma and other distressing life experiences.
During EMDR, you are guided through a series of gentle eye movements or other forms of bilateral stimulation while recalling specific memories or emotions. This process helps the brain reprocess difficult experiences so they feel less overwhelming.
Unlike traditional talk therapy, EMDR focuses on how the body and mind store unprocessed memories, allowing clients to experience meaningful relief and emotional balance.
EMDR can be used as a stand-alone treatment or integrated with other therapeutic approaches, depending on your needs.
Our Story of Hope and Resilience
Mandeville Mental Health Counseling is named for Julie’s second great-grandmother, Ella Mandeville. She was born in 1859, and had a comfortable childhood in Brooklyn.
She married at 18 and gave birth to a daughter nine months later. Two more girls came in the next few years, and her last child was born in 1886.
In early 1885, however, her husband married another woman in Upstate New York. He came back for the birth of their youngest child, but then disappeared.
This sensational story made the newspapers, which — we can only guess — was humiliating for Ella. At 27, she found herself divorced and alone with three children.
She remarried, but was widowed again at 32.
From census records, we see she was taken in by family, but her help dried up when her mother died of illness, and her father was killed after a car hit him in Coney Island.
Ella bounced between her children as they got married and started careers and families until she died at 92 in Florida.
What we don’t know about Ella is how she felt about what happened to her—how she grappled with the difficulties of her life and the difficulties of the world transforming around her so quickly.
But what we do know is that she kept going.
Every life carries its mix of challenges and successes. At Mandeville Mental Health Counseling, we help you build the tools and strategies to strengthen resilience in the face of difficulty, gain clarity on what truly matters to you, and create a path toward the most fulfilling version of your life.
Work with Mandeville Mental Health Counseling.
Our deepest hope is for you to walk into our practice and feel like you’ve found your people. We aim to help everyone we work with feel seen, heard, and supported — whether coping with day to day stresses or healing from grief and trauma. Together we will develop skills to move forward with less pain.
Each session is designed to meet you or your child exactly where you are. Therapy may focus on developing coping skills, managing anxiety or depression, building resilience, navigating grief or life transitions, or learning how to identify and express emotions in healthy ways.
If you think we could be a good fit, give us a call or write us an email to sign up for your free consultation.