Portland Therapy Center
KELLY Strider

KELLY Strider (she/her)

Licensed Professional Counselor

LPC, CADC III

I'm a feminist, anti-racist therapist aligned with social justice who has been providing individual & relational therapy for almost 20 years

Client Status

accepting clients

Contact

503-704-5061

10700 SW BEAVERTON HILLSDALE HWY

Suite 560

BEAVERTON, 97005

Email Website

At a Glance

Me

Rate: $170

Provides free initial consultation

Practicing Since: 2008

Languages: English

Services

  • Individual
  • Relationship
  • Teen

Insurances Accepted

  • PacificSource

My Ideal Client

I love that therapy is relational; there are many things we can do by ourselves, and some that require the witness, encouragement, collaboration, and guidance of someone else. I'm constantly impressed, humbled, and gratified by the kinds of changes my clients are able to make with the help of effective, supportive therapy. I work with clients who want to create life paths that fit who they are, even if that means rejecting dominant messaging and making something new for themselves.

My Approach to Helping

I joke that I practice and preach "the gospel of dialectical perspective." This comes from my experience with DBT, and goes beyond just the skills that DBT offers--skills that can be extremely helpful in their own right, but are no substitute for cultivating the ability to acknowledge the simultaneous contradictions in the world. The more we can do that, the better we get at so many crucial things: allowing ourselves to experience the fuller range of our feelings; softening perfectionism; transforming relationships instead of losing them; making sense of scary and painful events, both past and current; creating sustainable behavior patterns. I also think that story-telling has immense therapeutic potential--not just articulating our own stories to ourselves, but learning how to share those stories with others, and how to connect with other people's stories as sources of community and self-understanding.

My Personal Beliefs and Interests

I'm particularly passionate about the importance of relationships in our lives--familial, social, professional, and/or intimate--though I don't believe there's one right way to "do" relationships, or an ideal breadth or depth people should achieve in them. I want to see people be able to configure their constellation of connections in whatever manners they think are best--so long as others' rights to safety and self-determination are respected--because relational fulfillment has so much impact on our mental health.

Techniques I Use

Specialties

Issues I Treat

Specialties

  • Anxiety External link

    Every client of mine is experiencing stress and/or anxiety to the extent that their quality of life is being eroded. How can one not be, in this day and age? Through reflective and relational psychotherapy, I not only work with clients on coping skills, but how to still find joy and meaning in the midst of hardship.

  • Loss or Grief External link

    Every change we experience creates loss (even if it also brings opportunity) and loss, in turn, provokes grief (among other emotions). I help clients become more aware of what the losses in their life are, identify the complex variety of feelings that come with those losses, and figure out how move forward without grief and loss overshadowing them.

  • Drug Dependence / Abuse / Addiction External link

    Motivation is a crucial ingredient in making changes, and with addictive behaviors, it can be an especially slippery matter. I have over a decade of experience providing outpatient treatment exclusively for clients with substance use disorders, which has sharpened my skills in both this respect, as well as others that are needed for having success in recovery (i.e. trauma-informed care and coordination with medical providers).

  • Polyamorous and Open Relationships External link

    I work with all kinds of intimate/romantic relationships, from traditional marriage to open relationships and the practice of polyamory (yes, those are two different things!). The clients I do relational work with benefit from my non-judgmental creativity, humor, problem-solving, and psychoeducation about attachment, sex, and partnership.

  • Anger Management External link

    Research continues to show that learning how to regulate all of your emotions is a more effective path to managing your anger than methods such as "venting." Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) is an evidence-based approach to developing the skills to do this, and I have over 10 years of experience using this modality to help people in this area.

Contact KELLY

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