Kristen Smiddy

My goal is to help others achieve their goals and hopefully see themselves in a better light than ever before. I've been in this field for over 10 years and have been a fully licensed LPCC since 2019. I've worked with multiple populations during my education and practice. During my years completing my Masters I worked through community mental health within the schools to treat elementary school aged children and families. Once graduated I began working with individuals struggling with substance use and co occurring disorders. In my years of experience I have worked with those struggling with anxiety, depression, learning difficulties, behavioral issues, substance use, identity issues, and more. Therapy isn't a magic pill that solves everything overnight. As your therapist I would walk beside you to help create goals with you and help you discover the needed tools to achieve those goals.

I am a culturally competent and LGBTQAI+ affirming therapist. I myself identify as queer. My wife and I have two children and multiple fur babies. I believe everyone should be able to live their best life feeling comfortable and confident in who they are and who they love. In my own lived experience I have personally dealt with wonderful reactions to the coming out journey as well as terrible reactions. Our sessions together are a safe space for you to work through whatever life may be handing you at the moment.

Disclaimer : While I have no issues discussing marital/family issues in therapy, my experience has mostly been with individual, one on one, therapy. I do not feel confident in couples therapy and/or treating couples together.

My approach to therapy is getting to know you and collaborating with you to help improve areas you want to improve. I focus on the individual in front of me and learn what I can to help the best I can. You are the expert on your life and we will work together to reach your goals. I use a very person centered approach during sessions. I also incorporate aspects of motivational interviewing, cognitive behavioral therapy, existential therapy, dialectical therapy, etc. My choices on how to move forward and the techniques/therapy I use is dependent on what you need.

At the core of what I do is my client, aka you. We are collaborative partners in your healing. As stated above, you are the expert on your life, therefore I am taking my cues from you. Once I get to know you and what you are wanting to work on, then I can better know what techniques and therapies would be most helpful.

In our first session my goal is to create a safe space and get to know you. We would go over relevant history from your life and whatever is currently impacting your life that you would like to work on. We would develop a plan together on how to move forward from where you are now to where you want to be. Our first session together will be very focused on building a rapport with each other and building out that plan of what you are wanting to work on. Therapy requires us to sometimes discuss some hard things. Healing is not always easy and sometimes there are some big feelings that arise. My ask and my hope, is that if we are working together, that you are open with me about those times so we can move forward in a way you feel good about.