Meet Kira 

Like many of us, I grew up in a well-meaning home environment that was also dysfunctional and lacking in many ways. Due to the emotionally challenging home environment, I left and was out on my own at 16. I did not recognize it at the time, but with resilience and grit, I began building a life on my own. I was able to survive, accept change, and keep moving forward. Not always gracefully, but forward nonetheless. 

Out on my own I started out my corporate life as a temp worker and systematically climbed from there. It was not pretty, and not always smooth. I was anxious, I battled with insomnia, periods of depression, poor body image and established pretty dysfunctional and destructive habits. However, I remained functional enough to show up most of the time, and spent 14 years in the corporate world, working up to the role of data administrator/financial analyst. When I finally “grew up”—or maybe “woke up” is the right phrase—It became clear to continue on my professional climb up the corporate ladder I needed to head back to college. 

As I was working my way through courses, I discovered my true passion and calling in applying my analytical skills and love of research to try to understand who we are and why we do what we do. I found a new direction and a new path in the field of Psychology. While gaining my education, I decided to commit to this new direction and quit my career in finance to go work at a group home for troubled teens. Based on my family history I could really relate to some of their challenges.

After I received my Masters degree I went on to leverage my new talents and give back to the community by working at local non-profits. My early work in residential group homes and community agencies exposed me to various modalities, methodologies, and theories that I use today to better learn about others and help them overcome their challenges. I had the opportunity to work with community agencies, schools, juvenile correction facilities, and training was broad and in-depth in fields related to families, trauma, child and teen development and the growth and change of individuals.

As a therapist today, I continue my passion for learning and exploring. I am a firm believer that: one size does not fit all, not all information is consumed by clients the same way, and there are different ways to tap into and find motivators for change. I also feel that the best way to have a solid command of a subject is to teach, so in addition to providing therapy, I am also a clinical supervisor training the next generation of therapists.

After 14 years in the non-profit world, I opened up my own small private practice in order to focus deeper on specific areas.

Our Counseling Philosophy For Healing And Recovery

The truth is that I know as much about life as you do (but I would never claim to know YOUR life). The only difference is that my education has equipped me with the skills and training to better delve into thoughts, feelings, and behaviors and provide evidence-based support to address struggles so you may eventually overcome them. This dynamic is the core of my counseling philosophy—by cultivating an empathetic, authentic connection, you have a safe space where you can be seen and understood, and receive treatment that upholds the highest professional standards. As a therapist, I can help you identify your strengths and work through issues so you may get the most out of therapy sessions and ultimately life. Other key components of our counseling philosophy include:

• Non-judgment: Key Insights Counseling emphasizes a judgment-free zone for therapy so that you can express yourself fully, free from shame and fear of what others may think.

• Conquer fear of the unknown: Face the unknown by cultivating a healthy curiosity and the ability to take small steps forward while adjusting as needed.

• Acknowledge what you feel: Learn how to sit with and make meaning of difficult emotions so they dissipate on their own.

• Embrace the challenge of change: Counseling can give you the tools to navigate the discomfort, uncertainty, and newness of change, which is the path to improvement.

• Continue to learn and try: Through counseling, you can gain an understanding of your strengths, abilities, and qualities and receive the encouragement you need to dispel untruths you may have picked up about yourself from others.

• Accept the possibility of failure: Sometimes failure leads to a lesson and other times success—we will offer support in difficult moments where you feel hopeless or lost.

• Embrace complexity: Your interpretation of the world is influenced by genetics, upbringing, family, culture, experiences, thoughts, beliefs, behaviors, habits, and more. We can help you understand how these factors interact so you can carve out your unique place in the world.

We may not have all the answers, but we do offer tools that can help you find them. Our approach is one such tool that inspires the safe, open, non-judgmental environment needed for true healing to take place.

Our Process

Many people struggle with feelings of anxiety, depression, stress, and frustration in life, and getting to the root of these feelings is an important part of the healing process. In therapy sessions, we begin by exploring your challenges as well as strengths. We then identify the source of these issues and develop solutions and coping strategies to face them effectively. We may also identify limiting beliefs that keep you from realizing your full potential, and introduce modalities to encourage healing more fully. To this end, therapists at Key Insights Counseling (this is actually not true of my associates) have received training in Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EDMR), Gottman Couples Therapy, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), and family therapy. Team members at Key Insights Therapy regularly attend trainings and are working hard to augment and add to our already extensive toolbox of interventions and knowledge to pass on to our clients.  

Whether helping parents, children, adults or teenagers break maladaptive coping strategies, finding solutions to take families from chaos to calm, or helping couples to better communicate with one another, I am thrilled to be a driver in the growth of my clients—though the majority of the work they do themselves once they have the tools.