While having and developing a skill set in evidence based practices is an important attribute to being a therapist, I believe that developing an ability to respond to people authentically is the most important way people get their needs met.

My Authentic Experience:

Through my work as a mental health counselor for the past 18 years, I have learned and continue to learn that the only thing that is predictable is challenge and support (you know, good and bad of any situation). I have found that whatever I have personally gotten to experience and continue to get to experience, that it always guides me to ask hard questions to get honest with myself so I can discover who I am and who I authentically want to be (free from what systems or family think I should be). After all, people most often regret not being true to themselves at the end of their time and taking risks because of fear.

Over time I have gained multiple disciplines that has allowed me to discover who I want to be, therefore guide my clients towards discovering who they want to be simply by educating them and being in it with them as they discover what’s next for them. I love brain science, I love working with relationships of any sort, I love the psychology behind fear – its purpose and its opportunity it gives people with the right questions and knowledge about the feeling. I believe that relational myths hold us back from really learning how relationships are there to teach us. Relationships of any design (within your work whether you are the boss or the employee, child/parent relationships, aging parents dynamics, marital, couples, friend relationships) at any age in your life are designed to move around and evolve. I am not scared to lean into the hard feelings that so many relationships trigger and take a look at how conflict actually helps you which the opposite of the human condition is to try to avoid anything that feels unpleasant. (Nothing grows without friction.)

My best training comes from getting to be a Wife, Mother, Daughter, Sister, Friend, Psychotherapist, and Entrepreneur. My most important mission is being a Wife to Jeff and mother to Tahlia and Kalan.

My Clinical Experience:

Kris has 18 plus years experience in treating mental health concerns for all ages in a variety of settings. She has worked in hospital based systems (adolescent and adult partial care, inpatient care, intensive outpatient care), Outpatient Care Systems, Pediatric Clinics, and Public School Systems. Kris has grown three different businesses over the course of her professional experience. Prior to becoming a Mental Health Therapist, Kris has 8 plus years of collaborative experience working with families in home, working with individuals in crisis (dispatching for 911 Services) coaching, day camps, and personal development camps with teen girls.

Kris is a National Certified Counselor and holds a Nebraska License for Independent Mental Health. Kris has been studying inter-personal neurobiology concepts and human development concepts since 2012 and pulls from this information daily. Kris is experienced and well-versed in Play Therapy models including Synergetic Play Therapy. Other modalities that Kris has training in includes Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Mindfulness based therapy, and Somatic based therapy. Kris is certified in specific evidence based practices Parent Child Interaction Therapy and Trauma Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. Additionally, she is trained in Child Parent Psychotherapy, Dialectical Behavior Therapy, and Alternatives for Families Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. Kris is currently studying Radically Open Dialectical Behavior Therapy with the intent to become certified in the treatment model. Kris does marriage counseling using the PACT model that uses neuroscience, attachment theory, and the biology of human arousal to teach couples to navigate the marital journey.

Kris has facilitated multiple trainings to an array of populations. Included in this has been trainings for professionals handling stress and burnout, trainings to professionals to manage self harm in their clients, topics regarding mother-daughter relationships, teen girl development groups, trauma informed presentations to community partners and school personnel, and child behavior trainings. Kris has run dialectical behavior therapy groups, inpatient groups, Drug and Alcohol Intensive Outpatient Groups, and has created an intensive outpatient group for adolescents in private practice. Kris has provided professionals and graduate students looking for continuing education hours in the area of child behaviors, trauma informed care, and adolescent development areas. Kris is a Level I Train the Trainer for other Licensed Mental Health Therapists that wish to pursue certification in the evidence based model of Parent Child Interaction Therapy. Kris has done clinical supervision with other Mental Health Practitioners, Master Level Students for Practicum and Internship experiences, and often facilitates career and human development speeches and job shadowing for High School Students. Promoting Mental Health and Public Health to students is a value of Child and Family Therapy Institute.