About Kathleen Smith, LMFT
My name is Kathleen Smith (she/they), and I’m a licensed marriage and family therapist, researcher, writer, and educator. I am a proud neurodivergent and member of the LGBTQ+ community. I would love to work together or connect if you share similar, exciting ideas, or if I can support you.
Therapy
As a therapist, I am passionate about doing what works. I aim to be compassionate, respectful, and intentional in my therapy practice. I work with young people (mainly ages 16 – 30) who are struggling with understanding their identity, relationship problems, self-confidence, and life transitions using evidence-supported treatments. Previous clients have found my level of activeness in sessions to be helpful. That is, I don’t like to just sit back and listen, I want to get to the heart of the matter and work together to figure it out.
In our first few sessions together, you can expect to answer questions about yourself, to ask all the questions you need to determine if I am the right therapist for you, and to leave with new tools in hand. I aim to have you leaving therapy with lasting changes that actually work for you, based on what you truly need.
If it sounds like I might be a good fit, click the button below to get started!
Research Experience
Read my most recent JMFT Article:
About my goals:
Have you ever wondered why evidence-supported therapy didn’t work for you? There is a very real reason why this may be the case. My research focuses on dissemination and implementation science (D&I) practices because I am passionate about filling the research -> practice gap. That is, most clinical practices are tested only in efficacy trials (tested in a laboratory setting with lots of inclusion & exclusion criteria) with a homogenous sample (often white, heterosexual, cisgender, etc…). That does not work for most of us! We live real lives in the real world and have problems that are not simply isolated to us individually. Real problems are often systemic and relational, and we need to address them at these levels in therapy.
Previous Experience:
My previous experiences include leadership on an NIMH-funded quasi-experimental project under principle investigator, the one and only Dr. Jody Russon at Virginia Tech. This work aligned with D&I principles and supported the needs of marginalized youth. Read more about this project on her website!
I also had the pleasure of working with my advisor, Dr. Megan Dolbin-MacNab to develop an online intervention to support grandfamilies! Check out Dr. Dolbin-MacNab’s work here.