My name is Kate DeGraaf and I'm a Marriage and Family Therapist Candidate in Colorado and a Mental Health Counselor Candidate in Washington. Passionate about working with couples and families, I offer in-office or virtual individual, family, and couples counseling. Additionally, I provide home visits to elders, facilitate wellness groups and trainings in assisted living.

My professional journey began with advocacy and community organizing in the Bay Area, including organizing meetings for the Icarus Project and serving as a peer counselor on a domestic violence hotline. Witnessing the inaccessibility of mental health care for marginalized communities and the high rates of homelessness among individuals with severe mental illnesses, I came to see mental health care as a social justice issue.

This realization led me to pursue a master's degree in counseling psychology with a focus in community mental health at California Institute of Integral Studies. This department prioritizes psychodynamic practice and psychoanalytic theory and in working with very talented psychoanalysts at that time, I gained a solid foundation in theory and practice. I did my practicum at Agesong, an assisted living community and I was supervised by Nader Shabahangi, a respected authority in elder-focused psychology. This placement allowed me to garner substantial experience in eldercare as well as moving beyond verbal and memory reliant forms of psychotherapy.

Consistently seeking to broaden my therapeutic skills, I've pursued training in Imago couples therapy and continue to delve deeper into this specialization. The opportunity to assist couples in nurturing healthier relationships is a source of great satisfaction and happiness for me.

I continue to pursue my passion of supporting individuals with severe and persistent mental illness. In my current role as an intake counselor and therapist at Centennial Peaks Hospital, I help this population with entering inpatient care as well as gaining independence in our intensive outpatient group program. This role continues to sharpen my skills in clinical assessment, especially of severe depression, anxiety, PTSD, and psychotic disorders. Working in the intensive outpatient program has helped me focus my practice on providing tangible and measurable results to help people gain functionality when recovering from a severe mental illness.

I believe in using a number of different tools in addition to traditional talk therapy to make psychotherapy accessible for everyone. These could include art therapy, dream work, movement, mindfulness, observation of symbolic processes or reminiscing.

If you are interested in scheduling a consultation, please contact me through the button below.