Hello! I am Dr. Kathleen Kelly.  There are many good therapists out there, all with their unique and individualized styles.  When looking for a therapist, it is important that you find a good "fit" for your interests, needs, and personality.  Let me tell you a bit about my approach, how I work, and you can decide if it feels "right" to you.   

I am an emotions therapist. This means that I am interested not just in intellectual thoughts and ideas, although these are are important.  More so, I delve into the challenging, and often painful world of feelings.


Feelings. Yes...those sometimes wonderful, often painful, experiences we often do not want but can not live well without . . .

Most of us choose to stay away from pain.  Especially emotional pain.  Most of us know how to "push away" and compartmentalize certain thoughts and feelings when they seem to painful or "big" to deal with. . .and have some form of coping strategies for staying away from "these dark places".  However, life can come at us a little too fast, too powerfully, and "just too much" sometimes, and we find ourselves facing and dealing with feelings (and thoughts) that make us miserable.  Anxiety, racing throughts, obsessions, compulsions, nightmares, depression, anger, isolation, overeating, undereating, nightime eating, drinking, binging, drugs, over-working, over-exercising, and just "numbing" out. . .all of these, and more, are pretty common ways we try to manage when we are in emotional overload. 

Personal relationships are often a major source of emotional overload.  Whether your issues are related to being in a relationship, or because you are not, it is often the pain around our attachments - good and bad - that cause people to seek out therapy.  Are you having increased confict?  Maybe you find yourself withdrawing, isolating, distancing, and/or avoiding affection and intimacy.  Maybe there are affairs and betrayals. . . these are all signs that something emotional - powerfully emotional - is going on. 

Emotionally-based therapy starts with what is wrong "today" in your life, but to find answers, we look to the past - your emotional past.  All of us are a sum total of all of our experiences, negative and positive, past and present.  For some of you, a painful past may leave you feeling too much - and for others - too little.  For those of you who feel your emotional pain, you might wish you could turn it "off", because your reactions leave you exhausted and over-exposed in relationships.  Those of you that can can "shut out" your negative feelings and memories, you may rely too much on your intellect and logic, leaving you confused by your own, and others' emotions (and maybe labeled "unfeeling").  So, either way, therapy with me will have you exploring what kind of "relationship" you have with your own emotions. 

Some of the questions I focus on in therapy include: 

• How do you feel about emotions?
• Do you know what you are feeling? 
• Do you "allow" yourself to feel sadness or do you try to shut it down? 
• What do you do with anger? 
• Have you been hurt by people you love?  How?
• Do you seek out (or get) support from others?
• How well do you understand other people's feelings?