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Kayleah Pensalfini is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor Associate and Registered Dance/Movement Therapist committed to promoting individual resilience. Many of her clients bring in emotional pain, whether the symptoms of anxiety and depression are taking a daily toll, relationships feel unbalanced and disconnected, or stress and self-criticism are impacting work/academic performance. Kayleah treats painful experiences of the past with curiosity, creativity, and compassion, for clients to move with greater freedom into their bright future.
Kayleah takes a conscientious, innovative approach to treatment with a focus on the mind-body connection and embraces everyone as a whole being. She gently challenges clients to explore the root cause of their symptoms, gaining new awareness of their emotional and relationship patterns.
As an embodied and trauma-informed practitioner, Kayleah is sensitive to the influence of past experiences on present challenges and works closely with clients to reframe the narrative of their lives in a way that increases self-confidence and well-being. She uses the strengths of each person and believes that each individual is an agent of change.
Kayleah’s previous experience at Hasbro Children’s Hospital and Butler Hospital working with a range of acute cases across child and adult populations including serious medical illnesses, depression, anxiety, psychosis, mood disorders, suicidal ideation and self-harm allowed her to bring forth an informed perspective across various levels of treatment making her uniquely qualified to work alongside individuals at any point of their journey.
Kayleah is committed to working with the client through collaboration to create a safe and culturally affirming therapeutic space to feel comfortable expressing emotions and feelings, process challenging experiences, address personal needs and goals, and access self-compassion. With a background in the arts, she is passionate about bringing a special awareness to the healing power of creative expression.
Years of Experience: 2 years
Supervisor: Melissa Wakely(LMHC MHC00952)
Mind-body connection - Practicing mindfulness to draw together how the body feels physically and how the mind feels mentally; healing both physically and mentally
Anxiety - Coping with excessive worry, nervousness, or stress; intense discomfort in social settings (social anxiety); sudden and intense feelings of panic (panic disorder)
Relationship issues - Understanding one’s wants and needs in relationships; exploring patterns of interaction, addressing concerns, and strengthening satisfaction in relationships and dating
Depression - Providing support and promoting healing of hopelessness, low motivation and energy, sadness, irritability, sleep disturbance, and loss of interest and pleasure in life
Childhood trauma - Learning how traumatic events in childhood can translate into adulthood; processing through difficult memories with the goal of moving past the experience and lingering symptoms
Emotion regulation - Learning how to effectively manage the ups and downs of intense emotions; developing coping skills to use in a variety of settings to calm oneself and to give an appropriate amount of space to emotions