Brooklyn psychotherapist uses puppetry to help people cope amid pandemic

A puppet in Brooklyn is helping people all over the world cope with deep issues many have gone through.

Since the pandemic, Louie the Monster logs on social media a couple times a week to help people through.

Behind the puppet is Avi Steinhardt, a Brooklyn-based psychotherapist and licensed social worker.

"I liked the idea of trying to get at deeper ideas with a puppet," he says. "The seed of the idea came a few years ago watching footage of Jim Henson's memorial."

Steinhardt says he was so moved he bought a puppet himself.

"It wasn't until the pandemic started and the lockdown started that Louis kind of tapped me on the shoulder and was like, 'We should start talking to people,'" he says.

All over the world people are clicking on Steinhardt's videos that tackle tough topics.

He says, "Some of it is me trying to integrate a psychological response to difficult things in life with a poetic response to difficult things in life."