Kali Carpenter

Therapy is an art—and after more than a decade of practicing it, I still feel incredibly lucky to call it my work. I’m a Licensed Clinical Social Worker who has been practicing since 2013. Over the years, I’ve developed a particular passion for helping people make sense of the experiences that shaped them—whether that means working through past trauma, navigating something painful that is happening right now, or understanding patterns that no longer serve them. My approach is warm, genuine, and nonjudgmental, but I won’t simply tell you what you want to hear. I’ll meet you where you are while also helping you move toward where you want to be. I believe you can feel deeply understood and be challenged to grow. Those things aren’t opposites—they’re both essential to meaningful therapy. I also have a particular appreciation for neurodivergent clients. As someone with ADHD myself, I understand that experience from the inside—not just the challenges with attention or organization, but the frustration, overwhelm, and ADHD shame that can come with constantly feeling like you’re supposed to be functioning differently than you are. Most importantly, I genuinely love doing therapy. I’m endlessly curious about people. I love helping someone connect dots they couldn’t see before, understand themselves with more compassion, and finally recognize that the parts of themselves they’ve been fighting may actually be trying to tell them something. You don’t need to have everything figured out before you come to therapy. That’s what we’re here to work on. If you’re looking for a therapist who will truly listen, won’t judge you, won’t sugarcoat things, and will walk alongside you while also challenging you when you need it, we may be a very good fit.

One of the most influential trainings of my career was intensive Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) training. What stayed with me wasn’t just the skills—it was the philosophy behind them: the dance between acceptance and change, empathy and irreverence, validation and accountability. I believe good therapy requires knowing when someone needs to hear, “Of course you feel this way. Given what you’ve been through, it makes perfect sense.” And sometimes, they need a therapist who can lovingly say, “Okay... but what are you going to do about it?” I believe I’ve become very good at knowing the difference. Trauma has also been a consistent focus throughout my career. I’m particularly interested in helping clients understand how past experiences can continue to affect the way they think, feel, relate to others, and experience their bodies in the present. I’m influenced by the work of Bessel van der Kolk and by approaches that recognize that healing involves more than simply talking about what happened.

The first session feels more like a conversation than an appointment. I'll ask what brings you in

and what you're hoping for from therapy, but mostly I'll just listen. There's no clipboard, no

script. By the end of our first hour, you'll have a real sense of what it feels like to work together,

and whether this space could be yours. Most people leave feeling a little lighter than when they

arrived.