More About Me
I believe it’s important for me as a therapist to show up as my full self in my work. After all, my lived and living experiences drew me to this work and inform my perspective.
I approach the therapist role as less of an “expert” and more of a capable emotional doula, accompanying you in your process of growth.
I believe that, under the right circumstances, all people have within them the ability to heal and be well.
With a warm smile and a ready laugh, I will be a mirror for the parts of you that are already resilient, healthy, and determined to thrive.
What might our sessions look like?
A typical session with me could be divided into three sections:
A check-in at the start of our sessions, where you share any life updates and/or ideas of how you’d like to use the session
A middle section where we give space and attention to what needs to be witnessed or processed
A closing section where we re-orient to the present and prepare to end the session.
I use a mix of “bottom-up” and “top-down” approaches in my work.
“Top-Down” approaches involve using the rational mind to examine, organize, and/or make meaning out of our experiences, emotions, and sensations. This can include goal-setting, problem-solving, and action-planning. People tend to experience these approaches as “doing.”
“Bottom-Up” approaches invite us to notice, allow, and name our experiences. They involve getting in touch with the “felt sense,” including sensations, emotions, urges, gestures/movements, imaginings, images, and metaphors. People tend to experience these approaches as “being with.”
What’s your therapeutic style?
Some words clients have used to describe my style are: helpful, understanding, fully present, flexible, playful, and calming.
Here are some of the ways I try to show up:
Collaborative - I view our work as a real collaboration. It’s important to me that your values, interests, experiences, learning & processing styles, goals, and ultimately your autonomy is centered in our work. I will be upfront about what knowledge and experience I bring to the table, where that knowledge comes from, as well as when I don’t know something. I will do my best to pay attention to the power dynamic inherent in the therapist-client relationship, including operating with transparency and inviting collaboration when making decisions related to your care.
Relational - It’s important to me that our relationship feels like a space where you can be honest about what’s true for you, what might be hard or scary, or what is just coming into your awareness. I want you to feel that you’re really here with me, the human that is Kelly Reed, LMHC, and that I’m really here with you (even if we’re only together virtually). I deeply value talking about the relationships in your life — friends, partners, lovers, family, ancestors, non-human kin, land, a higher power — and the quality of those relationships.
Creative - I try to show up to our work ready to respond with flexibility to what’s coming through for you and how best to support you in your process of being with/ expressing/ understanding/ relating to that. I often employ creative and expressive strategies in addition to supporting your own creative responses. I believe creativity is inherent to all people, an essential part of what it means to be alive, and that creative expression is a health-promoting practice.
Some theories & approaches that guide my work:
Intersectional feminist values (including ongoing personal praxis in anticapitalist, abolitionist, and decolonial frameworks)
Liberation psychology
Embodied & somatic approaches to healing, including expressive therapies, ancestor work and inner child work
Polyvagal theory & the neurobiology of trauma
My own lifelong personal experience studying & engaging with the creative process
Internal Family Systems (IFS) “Parts Work” and related frameworks
The Adult Children of Alcoholics & Dysfunctional Families (ACOA) tradition
Fat-Positive and Body Liberation values
Sex-Positive, Kink-Positive, Polyam-Positive, and Pro-Sex Worker values
To read more about the lineages of my practice, including my education and training, click here.