About Me
Allie Loeb, LCSW
Allie Loeb is the founder of First Light Therapy, a Hoboken-based mental health practice focused on the mental health needs of women in their 20s, 30s, and 40s, as well as play therapy for children ages 3-8 years old. After working in a variety of settings throughout NYC, NJ, and the Boston area, Allie saw a critical need for a modern mental health practice that aimed to address two things: 1) the complexities and overlaps of perinatal and early childhood mental health, and 2) fully understand the stress, pressures, and intensities that women and children living in urban areas are navigating everyday.
-
Allie approaches her work through a relational lens, centered on creating a safe and supportive space where clients feel comfortable exploring their experiences and challenges, and feel empowered to tackle some of their biggest fears and anxieties. She believes that therapy is most effective when clients are able to build strong therapeutic alliances based on trust, emotional vulnerability, and genuine understanding of experiences, which in turn helps individuals uncover their inner strength, courage, and resilience. Allie aims to provide a therapeutic environment where life's challenges are seen as opportunities for growth and transformation, exploring together how past experiences shape present beliefs, setting new goals, and working towards living a life filled with joy, confidence, and excitement.
-
Perinatal: While Allie works with all women throughout the perinatal transition (including thinking about having kids, TTC, pregnancy, and postpartum), she most frequently works with women who identify as type-A, perfectionists, highly-driven, and struggling with anxiety. Many of these women mirror the energy and stressors of the NYC area, and find that pregnancy and postpartum challenge these parts of their identity. Her work with her clients aims to find increased self-compassion, reduction in anxiety, improved confidence, and a reassessment and alignment with their values.
Child Therapy: For child therapy clients, Allie has extensive training and experience supporting children ages 3-8 years old providing child-centered play therapy services. While she’s supported children and families across a variety of transitions and challenges, she most often works with young children experiencing anxiety, OCD, struggling with big feelings and behaviors, or could be considered “highly sensitive”. She believes in engaging parents in the work, too, giving them the tools to better understand and connect with their child so the healing that begins in session grows stronger at home.
-
Allie is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker in both New Jersey and New York. She holds a Master’s Degree in Social Work with a concentration in Children, Youth, and Families from Boston College (2018), as well as a Bachelor’s Degree in Psychology from Wake Forest University (2016). She continues to pursue trainings in perinatal mental health and child-centered play therapy, as well as specific interventions including I-CBT, ACT, CBT, and ERP.
Before opening First Light Therapy, Allie worked in a variety of settings including schools, homes, shelters, outpatient clinics, and private practices. She’s worked extensively with adults facing fertility challenges, miscarriages, and pre- and postpartum anxiety and depression. She has also supported children and their caregivers through some of their most stressful and vulnerable moments, including family changes, school anxieties, identity development, and navigating the child welfare system. This diverse experience has equipped her to address a wide range of needs, including anxiety, depression, ADHD, autism, PTSD, self-harm, OCD, and bipolar disorder, in various settings such as schools, outpatient clinics, and home-based environments.
-
Although she grew up in Massachusetts, Allie now proudly calls Hoboken her home! She loves having NYC in her backyard and takes advantage of all that both NJ and NY have to offer. You can often find her in workout classes, visiting coffee shops and restaurants, or reading in the park! Come summer time (her favorite season!), she loves to take trips down the shore to the beach, or into upstate NY for some hiking.
