About Steven Paglierani

Steven Paglierani is an author, educator, Emergence Psychotherapist, and film maker whose writings describe the world through the lens of the autism spectrum. As a licensed therapist, he teaches others—especially those who are outside the norm and find it hard to fit in—to stop imitating normal and to be themselves. He has authored the first blamelessly "natural" personality theory, a theory where everything derives from a single fractal pattern. He's also built and raced Shelby Mustangs, been a singer/song writer mentioned in Rolling Stone, and designed his best friend's home as a wedding gift.

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LICENSE / Credentials

1990 CASAC NYS Credentialed Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Counselor # 4268
1994 LCSW NYS Licensed Clinical Social Worker # 050297
2000 LCSW “r” NYS Licensed Clinical Social Worker - 6 yr “R” letter
2006 BCD Board Certified Diplomate in Clinical Social Work

EMPLOYMENT

1991 – Present

Full Time Private Practice / Center for Emergence, Nanuet, NY

I generally see between 34 and 42 clients/couples per week, mostly 60 minute sessions, and have been seeing this many clients for more than two decades. I currently supervise three LCSW’s and three LMHC’s, have supervised masters students for several colleges, run a once-a month supervision group in my center (filmed with six cameras), and have for years been a paid lecturer on topics such as autism spectrum disorders, alcoholism & additions, and treating adolescent’s and their families.

1988 - 1994

I worked as the adolescent family therapist in a 30 bed adolescent residential rehab (late ‘80’s – early ‘90’s - Arms Acres, Carmel, NY). My duties included conducting a weekly 4-day family program using experiential multi-family groups in a variety of modalities, as well as intake, diagnostic assessment and referral for family members. Duties also included program development, adolescent & adult interventions, adolescent group work, play & art therapy, etc.

I worked as the Director Clinical Program Development at the Doe Fund (1991, Bedford Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, NY), a 70 bed homeless/job training program.

I worked as a case manager at Project Rainbow (1992 – 1993, Pomona, NY) an outpatient treatment center for 10-12 year old children of alcoholics.

I worked as a counselor at Jawonio (1993 – 1994, New City, NY), an outpatient center / sheltered workshop for adults with mulitple-disabilities. There I ran a group for stroke/head trauma survivors, a group for adults with multiple disabilities (LD, wheelchair bound, MI, etc.), and did individual case management.

EDUCATION

1988 AS Empire State College, Hartsdale, NY (A.S. Humanities)
1990 CAC Long Island University, Sparkhill, NY (academic requirement for CAC)
1990 BS Empire State College, Hartsdale, NY (Bachelors Counseling)
1992 HIV CTC ARC, Elmsford, NY ( NYS Certified HIV Test Counselor)
1994 MSW Fordham University, NY

WORKS PUBLISHED

2016 - Present Articles: I've written close to 100 articles for Quora which, as of May 2020, have netted over 150,000 reads.
2010 Book: Solving the Mind Body Mystery (why do some people lose their words?)
2011 Book: Unraveling Human Nature (how well do you know yourself?)
2016 Book: The Science of Discovery (why do scientists so rarely make breakthroughs)
2020 Book: Therapy for Therapists (a guide to changing lives) (out later this year)
2020 (in progress) Book: The Diagnostic Manual Reimagined (can we stop saying people are broken?) (late 2022 release?)

Healing My Fear of Heights (using cycles of three)

(This video is typical of Steven. He believes he should never ask others to do what he, himself, will not do. And in this video, he tells the story of how he healed his lifelong fear of heights. Know that when he says, "healed," he does not mean merely ridding himself of the symptoms. He means "falling in love" with looking down from high places.)

In the Summer of 1996, I discovered a way to identify & heal wounds. Unfortunately, by about age 4, the human mind creates three limitations. For close to twenty years, these limitations have prevented me from teaching this discovery to others. Indeed, these limitations are so powerful, they have become the basis for our science, our medicine, and our psychology. And anything which does not make it past these filters, the human mind simply discards.

What kinds of things does the mind filter out? Unanswered questions, things which focus on wholeness, and the importance of natural patterns. What kinds of things does the human mind retain? Things which focus on answers, things which focus on brokenness (suffering), and things which focus on logic. Here, science focuses on finding answers. Medicine focuses on what's broken. And psychology focuses only on logical answers to what's broken.

Is it possible to learn to see past these three limits? All I can say is, I have. How? By visualizing scenes in which these three limits do not exist. For instance, in the story I'm about to tell you, I used a technique called, "cycles of three". This technique allowed me to heal a lifelong fear of heights.