Kelley O'Hanlon (she/her)

My expertise with LGBTQ issues includes the following: I identify as a member of the LGBTQ+ community; and my year-long internship was with Seattle Counseling Service, the oldest LGBTQ-focused community mental health agency in the world. In addition to these experiences, the majority of my clients in my private practice have identified as LGBTQ+.

My expertise with Polyamorous and Open relationships: I have worked with multiple couples exploring opening up their relationships, as well as navigating the complications that come from open relationships. I firmly believe that non-monogamy is not for everyone, and I am thrilled to help couples and moresomes navigate this rewarding way of engaging in relationships.

I have worked with clients with a wide variety of kinky identities & interests, everything from bondage to various fetishes to power-exchange relationships. I have no problem with educating myself about your kink, though I will ask about how you practice it, rather than assuming information I gathered from a book could encapsulate your play & identity. My passion is helping clients who have had therapists latch onto their outsider status as being THE problem, instead of seeing the whole person.

My degree from LIOS/Saybrook University includes a focus in Systems Therapy. The Family Systems we are exposed to during our development informs how we look at the world, our sense of ourselves, and how the two interact. Our Family System especially informs our behavior, and learning more about how that works, and how to change our interactions with and perspectives on our family unit helps lead to change in our own behavior.

Mindfulness is a way of being in the world that helps to increase our awareness of our behaviors, but also our choices and possibilities in changing our behaviors. The practice of mindfulness gives us space to breathe, to be, and to learn to approach our patterns with compassion and self-awareness. I teach mindfulness skills to clients, as well as working on my own ongoing practice in mindfulness. I have attended a MBSR-class and engage in ongoing learning on this topic.

My baseline view of therapy is humanistic, specifically Rogerian, therapy. I am in the room with you as another human being, a guide, who is approaching therapy with geniuneness, empathy, and unconditional positive regard. I am here to help you find the answers that you need to uncover within yourself. You are the expert on your life. I am here to listen and to point out the patterns and possibilities you may be overlooking, and to provide a few other handy tools I've learned along the way.