Karen Keys (she/her)

Anxiety robs us of our moments and keeps us stuck in "what if." I bring a gentle experience to guiding people through evidence-based practices. I use specialized advanced training in cognitive behavioral therapy, mindfulness based stress reduction, and motivational interviewing to advance the change process. I come from a trauma-informed background to help people re-voice and re-choice after experiences where they have felt powerless and unsafe.

I have tools to help people identify their true feelings, beliefs, and life goals when navigating major changes. In addition to my clinical experiences, I've been through a few changes myself and know how to listen, help clarify, and support you through loss, change, and new beginnings.

Motivational Interviewing is a stance that explores and supports you own unique change process, on any kind of change you are seeking. Specific techniques can help you identify what motivates you and what sets you back. You will learn tools to help you understand the universal elements of making and maintaining changes - tools that you can use long after therapy ends.

Mindfulness skills help people feel more alive and also less overwhelmed or immersed in stressful or difficult circumstances. Evidence has shown overwhelming benefit through practice in daily coping, more compassion and joy, less pain, and a host of other improvements. My formal training and practice in this approach has helped many of my clients with a range of challenges.

CBT is based on the idea that our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors reinforce each other. It uses a range of techniques to systematically identify ways you can identify and change false ideas about yourself and the world -- like always imagining the worst or feeling like failure. It is an active therapy that is improved with home practice. Understanding and challenging your old & unhelpful inner dialogue holds immense powers for healing.

I use Gottman and other evidence-based approaches to recapture joy, emotional connection and safety in your relationship; or gain clarity to decide and manage constructive separation. Couples and individuals will gain understanding of their patterns including attachment, intimacy, and conflict styles. With new skills and insights, couples and individuals can create healthy, fulfilling partnerships.

Depression isn't just about sadness or lack of energy, it's really about being stuck. We all experience disappointments and loss, but depression is when we can't move forward when it's time to. Therapy can help you find hope and forward momentum again. Through being understood and helped to pick up and try again, you can reclaim your vitality and joy.

Stress can seem inescapable at times, especially during our ongoing pandemic. Therapy can help you learn how to relieve your tension and understand where it comes from. You can learn how to calm your body and your racing mind. We'll explore your thoughts and beliefs in order to make deep and lasting change. Ultimately, we support you to integrate all parts of yourself and bring your life into better balance.

Gottman method is based on the largest body of proven evidence in relationship therapy. Therapy begins by getting to know you with informal and formal questions. Based on your unique relationship, therapy then teaches you specific skills to improve your understanding of yourselves and each other, practice constructive conflict, and heal and build your connection and intimacy. Some couples clarify the choice to separate and therapy can help you work constructively through that process.

Whatever cultural or family you come from, historical trauma may play a role in shaping your life. You may be struggling with adversity in just a few generations in your own family or a large diaspora community harmed by systemic oppression. I help people understand themselves in generational context and understand how history affects their beliefs and experiences in living. You can learn healing and how to break the chain of trauma and harm.

Depression isn't just sadness, it's a kind of stuckness. It isn't just losing sight of the sun but not believing that you will see the sun again. I can help you understand how and why you feel so down and unable to climb out of it. Sometimes we might have tools and practices, but often the connection and insight of therapy lays the foundation for your own growth out of depression and into your own life.

Our earliest attachments set us on a course for our later relationships. In therapy, you can understand what went right and wrong -- and then make healthy choices here and now.