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Joe Conlon and Mary HInd are the founding partners of Virtual Therapy for Kids. The service is built around video games. Photos from Joe Conlon

By Chris Mellides

Growing up with video games was commonplace for many children and teens throughout the 1980s, 90s and beyond. But what if these pixelated worlds weren’t designed to spoil your mind as so many parents would insist on, following Saturday morning cartoons and bottomless bowls of Cap’n Crunch cereal?

Joe Conlon

What if, instead, video games helped repair those young, developing minds?

Regarding the topic, 33-year-old East Northport resident and licensed clinical social worker, Joe Conlon, and founding partner Mary Hind, a clinical social worker and therapist herself, answer back with their business Virtual Therapy for Kids. 

The service they created is built around the most accessible and widely consumable media in the world — video games, where some of the more popular titles include online available juggernauts such as Fortnite, Minecraft and Roblox, according to Conlon, who leaps out of his therapist’s chair and into a virtual world where “meeting the clients where they’re at” is paramount, and where playing alongside them holds its own blend of fun and incremental learning, according to him. 

Conlon recalls a time before COVID-19 when parents of children with developmental disabilities would be running late only to request a phone session for their child and Conlon would simply refuse to make the appointment. 

“I just cannot do it over the phone,” he said. “It’s so hard to connect with the kids, especially [when] audio and video wasn’t even a thought.”

Hind offers her own insight, which aligns with her business partner. Hind hails from Babylon, graduated from Hunter’s Silberman School of Social Work in 2019 with a focus on Children and Adolescents and Child Welfare and is a fierce advocate for the mental health of the children she serves.

Mary HInd

“Working with a niche population and being virtual, allows me as a therapist, to capitalize on kids having sessions in the comfort of their own space,” said Hind. “This means allowing kids to create a therapeutic environment, with far less pressure than a traditional therapy setting.”

The focus is on engaging with children and adolescents between the ages of 4 and 17 in a way where cognitive behavioral treatment transforms into online gaming therapy — a concept that the young entrepreneur credits to the children that altered his view of what remote learning could become.

It’s hard to believe that as founding members, Conlon and Hind have yet to meet in person, and though they are apart, together they forge a business partnership intended for the betterment of children and the parents that require the help of professionals.

“I’m taking the symbolism in the game and making parallels to life,” Conlon said. “Kids say you’re much more yourself when you’re in these digital worlds.”

He added, “I’m trained to see where the kid has anxiety based on what the parents tell me. Kids with ADD [attention-deficit disorder] and ADHD [attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder], for example, are overly emotional.” And so they require interaction with Conlon and Hind, who log on and set goals for their kid clients to complete on a weekly basis within a particular video game title. 

In Fortnite, Conlon will instruct his clients to complete a seemingly difficult task, such as building a wall to guard against oncoming attacks from other competing online players. 

The response to the goals that the two licensed therapists set have been very positive, according to Conlon, who also said that his clients get excited completing a complex task requiring concentration, and that the parents of these children are overjoyed in sharing with a child’s achievement.  

In what seems like an endless pandemic, business partners Conlon and Hind see potential for the growth of their business and for aiding their communities both on and offline where therapy and consultation rates start at $45. Their website is www.virtualtherapyforkids.com.

Older parents attempt to understand a generation growing into the next evolutionary cycle of the internet, and what that means for the emotional health and well-being of their children can be distressing, according to Conlon. 

“How they cope in an ever-changing world where digital avatars and virtual gaming has become the norm, fitting in and navigating tenuous relationships is harder than it has ever been before,” Conlon said. 

“Diagnosing kids is what led me to diagnose myself,” he said. “Having ADHD, we’re more likely to keep thinking outside the box.”

“When you’re stuck in the storm, you go and get some bandages, go find a safe spot and go back into battle,” Conlon said, which is perhaps a lesson in gaming and life in general. 

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Photo from Rage Room

By Chris Cumella

The area could soon have its own rage room — a creation designed for destruction. The local concept was conceived in 2019 by Michael Hellmann, who hopes to start up Rage Room Long Island.

A vacant storefront on Middle Country Road could be on its way to becoming the latest attraction that Selden has to offer its residents and visitors alike. The last hurdle for Hellmann and his crew is obtaining a permit from the Town of Brookhaven. Doing so will solidify their place in the Selden Plaza and create a therapeutic stress release for all who enter.

“We started this project two years ago,” said Hellmann, a Holbrook resident. “It is definitely an intense workout if you want it to be  — you can break a picture of your ex, you can make it whatever you want.”

Derived from Japan, the first rage room opened in 2008, known as The Venting Place. It was created in the wake of the nation’s Great Recession, putting stressed-out workers, students and people from all walks of life in an environment where destruction was therapeutic. Since then, over 60 venues are operating in the U.S. and rising, according to Hellmann.

He said that his premises would include two sizable rooms accompanied by a third, larger room designed for parties and other big groups. Once a waiver is signed, a mechanical arm will hand you a weapon of your choice to arm yourself with —including crowbars, sledgehammers, golf clubs and even pipe wrenches.

“Michael is very creative and is looking at the latest and most innovative methods,” said Michaela Pawluk, social media manager of Rage Room LI. “When you go to other rage rooms, you are just destroying things, but the way that he created it and designed it — it is an entire experience.”

Participants are equipped with thick coveralls and a face shield for bodily protection from the bits of cutlery, furniture and technology scattered throughout a room during their allotted time ranging from 15-30 minutes. For the larger room intended for parties, audiences will have access to larger objects to unload. These include an industrial humidifier and a 4-foot Xerox machine right out of an attorney’s office.

Recycling is the name of Rage Room LI’s game, and Hellmann and his team play strategically when scouting the town’s curbs for discarded objects large enough for further destruction. Once a customer is finished with their session, the leftover scraps are recycled once again in an environmentally conscious effort to avoid sending them to a landfill.

“We are literally getting things off the street,” Hellmann said. “We have a Rage Room LI van, and we drive around the neighborhoods to collect junk off the curb. We love finding things that are technologically based.”

A rage room is designed to be used in any way that customers see fit — from an outlet to unleash anger to a venue for birthday parties. Rage Room LI is attempting to break the stigma around the danger of rage rooms. One of their most significant priorities has been to facilitate a safe environment where people can let endorphins flourish and have fun.

To get up and running at the request of over 900 eager participants via email, Hellmann is seeking a permit from the town to register his business. All town board members have expressed interest in introducing Long Island’s first rage room, except for one hesitant councilmember concerned of misuse or bringing in troubling individuals.

Rage Room LI has seen support from a petition on Change.org to open shop that has garnered 586 signatures as at May 12 out of a goal of 1,000. Aside from the signatures, the purpose of creating the petition was to show local and neighboring residents that it is a worthwhile cause. It is a continuous effort which Pawluk encourages anyone who is interested to add their name to the petition to emphasize community solidarity.

Envisioning opening day leaves Hellmann and his crew optimistic that their business will make a tremendous splash in Selden. Rage Room LI is shaping up to succeed from the positive community feedback, project plans and potentially a permit at its side.

“At some point, people break things whether they want to or not,” Hellmann said. “We are just expressing positivity, that is mainly the goal.”

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Marianne Hennigar inside her new office on E Main Street in Port Jefferson. Photo by Julianne Mosher

There’s a new approach to releasing trauma and alleviating pain management. 

Marianne Hennigar, a pain specialist with certification in clinical massage and specialist in guided focus therapies, is making it her goal to give people support on their emotional journeys and simply feel better. 

The owner of a new space, located at 156 E Main Street in Port Jefferson, her office is tucked away on the busy main road. Through the gates, walking down toward the door of Insight Healing Ministries, visitors are greeted by Hennigar, who’s energy immediately makes them feel at ease. 

Her job as a health and wellness coach is to heal her clients and help make changes in their lives. 

“I collaborate with the client so that I’m not telling them what to do, because we want them to comply,” she said. “It’s a very non-bossy way of helping people.”

Hennigar has had an interesting career. Since 1994, she had been a clinical and orthopedic massage therapist. Although she doesn’t do massage anymore, she is still a pain specialist who is able to target different ailments through talk therapy and hands-on work.

“You have your general practitioner doctor, and then you have your surgeon who does something very specific,” she said. “I’m the surgeon in that case.” 

She said that she can help combat things like chiropractic care gone bad, or issues that aren’t being resolved through physical therapy.

“I’m really able to mobilize people’s tissues and help them get back into alignment, and live a more painful and free life,” she said, “But also give them instruction, and guidance on how they might want to use their body differently, so that they keep themselves out of pain, and they gain the strength they need.”

With certification from the Mayo Clinic, Hennigar helps build a plan that can work to the client’s individual needs. Some topics she’s successfully helped others with are cutting down on or stopping smoking, increasing nutrition and losing weight, changing toxic habits and getting more movement in their daily routine.

Hennigar uses guided focus therapies, including Somatic Experiencing and Brainspotting — both body-based modalities which support the client harnessing their own internal wisdom through focus to discover healing — to help people deal with trauma. 

“Basically, I’m  a one-stop shop for wellness,” she said. “And I will do a mix of all those modalities.”

If that wasn’t enough, she said she’s also working on her master’s in psychology from Liberty University.

But this isn’t a new hobby, she said. 

Since childhood, Hennigar has been fascinated by how people work. A speaker of several languages, Hennigar moved with family to Europe at 8 years old. Raised on the Island of Crete and in Spain, she realized early on that she wanted to help people feel good and live their lives to their fullest. 

When she came back to the states in her teenage years, she began working toward her practices, gradually adding more services and certifications, while raising her family.

She had a practice in Atlanta for 13 years, and then moved to Arkansas. This past summer, she and her husband moved to Coram and chose Port Jefferson village as her new office space in January.

“I love that we’ve been able to build the energy in here,” she said. “I love how it feels down here, and I needed to be in a population center where there’s a lot of people coming in and out. I wanted to be a part of a community and Port Jeff just felt right.”

Hennigar said the space is designed for play. Inside the office are dozens of different stations where the client can focus on objects through vision or touch, or a place where they can meditate. 

“The sky is the limit with this work,” she said.

Right now, many of Hennigar’s clients are utilizing telehealth, but she is accepting in-person appointments. First sessions are free, and payments are made through a donation box in the front.

“I accept donations, because people will come with all different economic abilities,” she said. “I offer them to go ahead and just make any type of offering that’s comfortable to them … The most important thing is that we get you to feeling better.”

Hennigar said that anyone who can use a little support, and who could use a peace of mind can seek her services.

“I love seeing people grow,” she said. “And even though a lot of this work is based on trauma models, what you really often want to see is people growing and blossoming, and for certain people, they come to a greater sense of their spiritual self, which really makes them happy because they feel connected.”

For more information, visit insighthealingministries.com or call Marianne at 404-944-8397.

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United States Army Staff Sgt. Allen Pennington and Warrior Ranch Foundation Vice President Tony Simonetti spend time with Pennington’s horse Red. Photo from Warrior Ranch Foundation

When Marine Corps veteran StaceyAnn Castro first stepped into the round pen with a horse at Warrior Ranch Foundation, her guard was up.

Castro, who served in Operation Enduring Freedom from 2002 to 2004, and admittedly struggles with post-traumatic stress disorder, was face to face with a 1,400-pound Friesian horse named BlackJack during a July demonstration by the Mount Sinai and Islip-based nonprofit, which pairs military and first-responder veterans with rescue horses in need of rehabilitation and training.

Marine Corps veteran StaceyAnn Castro bonds with
Vet therapy: Mount Sinai’s Warrior Ranch helps heal
her horse BlackJack. Photo from Warrior Ranch
Foundation

The tough-as-nails veteran was attempting to engage BlackJack in basic ground exercises, but the horse was not budging. Its guard was up too.

“I soon realized it was because I was terrified of him,” Castro later said. “When you’re with these horses they feel everything you’re feeling, even the emotions you think you’re hiding from everybody else. You can’t hide them from a horse.”

Castro relaxed, and as she calmed down, so did BlackJack. The horse began to lick and chew — a reflex associated with the animal’s release of stress.

“By the end of the session, I wound up with a friend,” she said of BlackJack. “With the horses, you have someone you’re actually bonding with in your own private, silent language. It’s beautiful.”

Officially incorporated in June 2016, the Warrior Ranch Foundation has helped reduce the stress levels and PTSD symptoms of more than a dozen veterans still recuperating from a wide range of conflicts — from the Korean War to Vietnam War to the war in Afghanistan — by teaching them how to groom, feed and train troubled horses. And much like the veterans, the nine residential horses, mostly retired race and show animals that have been trained their whole lives to compete and perform in high-stakes settings, are learning to adapt to a new, more relaxed world.

Cathie Doherty spends time with horse Cody.
Photo from Warrior Ranch Foundation

“There’s a strong parallel between them and it’s amazing to see their emotional breakthroughs,” said Eileen Shanahan, the nonprofit’s founder and president. “While the race horses are trained to run, run, run, and as a result have emotional issues, the veterans are trained to go out there and do the best they can to protect and defend us. When they come back, they have to shut that off and that’s not so easy. We provide a safe haven for these humans and animals.”

Shanahan’s organization is the result of her lifelong love of country and horses. The Queens native, who shoots and produces television programs and commercials for a living, comes from a large military family with a father who served in the Marines, an uncle and brother in the Navy, nephews in the Army, as well as several first responders.

Although she mostly rode buses and subways growing up, Shanahan always admired horses from afar, seeing them as beautiful creatures.

When she got married and moved to East Quogue in the 1980s, she took up horseback riding and, 15 years ago, began adopting rescue horses and studying natural horsemanship — a variety of rapport-based horse training techniques.

United States Army Staff Sgt. Allen
Pennington with horse Red. Photo
from Warrior Ranch Foundation

For nearly a decade, she dreamt of providing this outlet for local veterans and finally launched it with the help of longtime friends and equestrians specialists. While the group currently works out of two private barns, the future plan is to turn Warrior Ranch into a national organization.

“We want to eventually help hundreds of veterans and horses because it really works,” Shanahan said, explaining that interactions like Castro’s is very common at the ranch. “A lot of times when they come here, the veterans have their arms crossed, but by the end of the day, they have ear-to-ear grins. A lot of them break down and cry and it’s so powerful to watch.”

Tony Simonetti, Warrior Ranch’s vice president and top horse trainer, has made a career of rehabilitating emotionally distraught horses and re-interacting them with their human counterparts, resolving more than 500 extremely difficult horse cases for people across the country. When asked his most memorable veteran-horse interaction within the organization, he talked about Army Staff Sergeant Allen Pennington, Warrior Ranch’s first soldier to go through the program, and Red, a 4-year-old, retired race thoroughbred.

“[Allen’s] this big, rough and tough guy, and when the horse connected with him, I just saw all the stress he was holding inside bubble right up through his chest and then he just couldn’t keep himself composed,” Simonetti said. “He broke down and turned around and hugged that horse like it was his battle buddy. And I told him, ‘don’t feel bad about that. That’s what you’re here for.’”

During a testimonial on the Warrior Ranch website, Navy veteran Cathie Doherty, who was diagnosed with PTSD and put on medication for a number of years, said she was grateful to have attended a women veteran’s retreat at the nonprofit.

United States Army Staff Sgt. Allen
Pennington with horse Red. Photo
from Warrior Ranch Foundation

“It was really an amazing experience,” Doherty said. “I think it touched me much deeper than I imagined it would. I appreciated working with the horses and that I had to make a connection with them. I feel I was present in the moment. I didn’t care about my phone, I didn’t care what was going on around me. It was a beautiful experience for me.”

Castro said companionship with a horse might be more beneficial than a human’s.

“When you’re a veteran and you’re having a bad day, you don’t want to tell anybody, you don’t want to talk about it — you want to forget about it,” she said. “But I also don’t want to be alone and, so, when you’re there with the horse, and that horse knows what you’re going through and feeling, he feels it too. And because you love the horse and you don’t want the horse to feel that way, you’re going to try and make yourself feel better. It’s awe-inspiring.”

U.S. Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-Shirley), who served four years in the Army, visited the ranch in Mount Sinai with his family Oct. 7 and saw firsthand the value of the nonprofit.

“It doesn’t take more than a few minutes to see the positive effects that you’re having on these horses, and from these horses the veterans are getting love that they possibly have never experienced
before,” Zeldin said. “In a way, you’re directly coping with the symptoms of PTSD while also productively escaping the worst of it. It’s a great concept and I’d love to see Warrior Ranch grow into something a whole lot bigger than it already is.”

U.S. Rep. Lee Zeldin, fifth from left, meets with members of the Warrior Ranch Foundation. Photo from Warrior Ranch Foundation
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