Portland Therapy Center
Kalpana Krishnamurthy

Kalpana Krishnamurthy (she/her)

Licensed Professional Counselor

Licensed Professional Counselor

Supervisor: Sawyer Salameh, LPC & Deshawn Johnson, LPC

Working with API & BIPOC folks to support healing and joy. I work in person and am accepting clients in NE PDX.

Client Status

accepting clients

Contact

503-208-4221

825 NE 20th Avenue

Suite 250

Portland, 97232

8835 SW Canyon Lane, Suite 220

Portland, Oregon 97225

Email Website Schedule Now

At a Glance

Me

Rate: $150-$200

Provides free initial consultation

Practicing Since: 2024

Languages: English

Services

  • Individual
  • Group
  • Relationship

Insurances Accepted

  • Out of Pocket

My Ideal Client

Many clients I work with are dealing with anxiety or depression, grief and loss, parenting, exploring or navigating racial and cultural identities, exploring gender identity or preparing for gender affirming surgery, or working on their romantic relationship. Some clients aren't "working" on anything, but looking to create time each week to process, slow down, and have a regular space to check in with themselves. Where ever you are starting, I bring my curiosity and humor.

My Approach to Helping

I start by listening to build a strong relationship and making sure that the goals and direction in therapy are where you want to go. I focus on learning about you - strengths, growth areas, hopes, family, and fears - to understand the patterns in your life right now. As we get deeper, I use a mix of tools in session - from mindfulness to somatic work to creating maps to exploring thoughts and feelings. For South Asian, API, and other BIPOC clients, exploring your thoughts, beliefs, emotions, and personal story in therapy can be a risk. May be it goes against your cultural or family norms, or may be you’ve had bad experiences with white therapists. As a South Asian therapist, I bring my lived experience to our work together. While I may not share your specific racial or ethnic identities, I will respect and affirm your experiences while holding space for you to explore.

My Values as a Therapist

When I first started therapy, I could label 3 of my feelings: angry, sad, and hungry. And I wasn't even sure that hungry was a feeling? Little did I realize--most people can't name more than three feelings. Therapy helped me slow down and find my own experience of my feelings. That was a gamechanger. After 25 years as a community organizer working primarily with BIPOC and LGBTQ+ communities, I decided to change directions and become a therapist. You’ll always get some organizing flavor in my therapy because I believe that much of the suffering we face is because the systems around us (like schools, housing, or workplaces) weren’t built for us. Therapy can’t solve that–but our work can be a place of individual healing, connection, and radical understanding of your experience(s). Some identities that matter to me—and that might matter to you as you look for a therapist—include being South Asian, a cisgender woman, straight, and a parent.

Techniques I Use

Specialties

  • Internal Family Systems (IFS) External link

    We all contain multitudes: the overachiever, the worrier, the inner critic, or the part that wants to hide under a blanket forever. Parts work (Internal Family Systems) helps us get to know these different pieces of ourselves with curiosity instead of judgment, creating more self-understanding, flexibility, and compassion along the way. I’m an Internal Family Systems Level 1 certified therapist.

  • Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) External link

    ACT helps individuals build psychological flexibility which can be really helpful in our day to day lives. ACT also focuses on helping take action toward living a life aligned with your values. I have utilize ACT tools and approaches, have attended ACT trainings, and participate in an ACT consultation group.

  • Couples Counseling External link

    I work with individuals in the relationship on skills (learning to listen to one another or developing new ways to navigate conflict) and also having hard conversations from finances to intimacy challenges or mismatched desire to changes within the relationship or its structure. I primarily use Emotion Focused Therapy in work with relationships.

Issues I Treat

Specialties

  • Racial Identity External link

    I grew up in Portland, as the child of immigrants from India. Which means I went to mostly white schools where folks couldn’t say or didn’t bother learning how to say my name. I am deeply familiar with being the “only one”—whether it’s because of your race, ethnicity, immigrant family, or other cultural identities. While I may not share your specific racial or ethnic identities, I will respect and affirm your experiences while holding space for you to explore.

  • Gender Identity External link

    I support LGBTQ+ clients in their journey around sexual and gender identity, internalized homophobia or transphobia, and living in a system that regularly causes harm and can lead to grief, anger, depression and a host of other symptoms. Support includes: exploration around gender identity, navigating sexual expression and joy, preparation for gender affirming surgery, and post-operative integration and connection.

Contact Kalpana

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