Ilyse Kennedy

Teens & Adults

I work with teens and adults who have experienced many hurts and difficulties throughout their life. It may be as covert as feeling something was “off” with your childhood and never quite knowing what or as overt as human trafficking. I believe it is the hurts we have experienced and our nervous system responses to those hurts that show up as “symptoms.” It is often the parts of ourselves who are trying to protect us that look like symptoms.

Parents

I work with people who experienced difficult childhoods and are contending with this as they become parents themselves, whether you are pregnant with your first child or raising teenagers. Becoming a parent opens up many wounds we didn’t know were there, or we thought we’d bandaged properly. When we look in the faces of our own children, we see just how small and innocent they are. There is grief in recognizing the ways we want to pour in to our own children that we didn’t receive. You may be taking in information from the likes of Dr. Becky and Big Little Feelings but recognizing you are still getting triggered or having a difficult time parenting. I aid parents in healing from their own childhoods or other hurts as they parent their children. First and foremost, this healing is for you and we can acknowledge healing these cycles of trauma will greatly benefit your children (and their children and their children). It is difficult work but I truly believe that in healing parents, we heal the world.

Dissociative Disorders

I enjoy working with, and specialize in working with, dissociative disorders. Some of us experienced hurts that have caused the brain to fragment in order to protect us. For some, this means disconnecting the experience of the body from the experience of the brain. Dissociation can cause the brain to fragment in such a way that we have different “parts” or “alters” who do different jobs and aid in our functioning. This can be scary as we may lose time, not have access to certain memories, and “parts” of us may be interacting with the world in ways that feel upsetting for other “parts.” I aid those experiencing dissociation in healing from the hurts that caused the dissociation in the first place. For some, the goal is integrating, while for others the goal is system organization or even just a place to feel seen, heard, and understood in all your beautiful multiplicity.

Neurodivergence

I enjoy working with other folks who identify as neurodivergent. As an AuDHD therapist, I have found my own strengths and difficulties as neurodivergent. We all fall in different places under the umbrella and hold different traits. I help folks hold space for, and come more in to those traits. Many of us were made to feel as though we had to fit in to a neurotypical world which caused great harm and damage. I want the therapy room to be a space where you feel free and open to experience the accommodations you need from asking to dim the lights, to adjusting our therapy to the processing speed that works for you. Whether you have been formally diagnosed or self diagnosed, you deserve a space to feel seen and comfortable in the unique ways your beautiful brain works.

Healers

I enjoy working with healers who are moving through their own healing. As healers, we create a container for so many other people and don’t often have space for ourselves. We may be contending with layers of shame in all that we are holding alongside our clients. I offer you a space to hang up your therapist or healer hat and be held in all of your humanity. You may know all my “tricks” but many healers are drawn to working with me because of my skill in helping you to allow your intellectual parts to rest so you can drop in and be with the deeper parts that may get stirred in session watching you work with the tender parts of others and neglect your own. Healers deserve sacred space to move through our own hurts just as we create that space for others.

Couples

I enjoy working with couples who are experiencing difficulty due to their own histories. We often hear the trope “you must heal yourself before being in relationship” actually, relationships can be healing and we can heal within them. We come to relationship with our own histories, hurts, and attachment patterns. Many of us did not witness healthy relationships growing up and may not know a healthy, fulfilling relationship is possible. For those who come from backgrounds of trauma, couples therapy can be a powerful tool in healing from our histories and building a safe container for future resilience. Relationships aren’t easy and no matter how much you have endured, you deserve ease within relationships.

I believe in three pillars of therapy: somatic, parts healing, and memory reconsolidation. While general talk therapy can be helpful for addressing our daily stressors, our systems have learned a way of being that is deeply ingrained for our survival. Those ways of surviving likely saved us when we were up against immense threat. In healing, we must let our nervous systems know we are no longer being chased by the bear, so to speak. 

Somatic

I am trained in Somatic Experiencing therapy and have my Somatic Experiencing Practitioner certification. This way of working focuses on body sensation to aid in moving trauma through the body. You may have heard the phrase or book, “The Body Keeps the Score,” this way of working helps us to focus on what arises in our bodies in connection to trauma and process what is stuck to relieve symptoms of PTSD. Through exploration of body sensation, we aid in orienting the nervous system to safety and having the disconfirming experience of moving through traumatic memory (at a distance) while experiencing safety.

Parts Healing

I am trained in Internal Family Systems Therapy and have written a book on this way of working titled, “The Tender Parts.” Have you ever found yourself saying, “a part of me wants to go out tonight but another part of me wants to stay in”? In parts work, we more deeply explore the hopes and fears of those parts. Internal Family Systems considers that we are each beings of multiplicity and we have many parts within us who do different jobs. If you have seen the Pixar film, “Inside Out,” this is a great example of what we explore with IFS.  We may have parts of ourselves who are people pleasers, self critics, depressed parts, or serve other functions. Often, these parts developed to keep us safe in response to hurts we experienced. In IFS and parts work, we get to know these parts better so they are better able to function within our system rather than holding the belief that they just get in the way.  We might also be able to integrate and unburden these parts, if that is your goal, so they no longer have to do these jobs.

I am an EMDRIA Certified Therapist in EMDR, which stands for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing. EMDR is a therapy that targets specific traumatic memories and helps us reprocess them, so they no longer sit at the forefront of the mind or drive our symptoms.

When we experience trauma, the memory doesn’t get stored the way other memories do. It stays raw and unprocessed, and our nervous system becomes sensitive to anything that feels like the original experience: a smell, a sound, a tone of voice, a certain kind of light. Even when our conscious mind knows we’re safe, the body reacts as if the trauma is happening now.

In EMDR, we bring the memory to mind while using bilateral stimulation, such as back-and-forth eye movements, tapping, or tones, and while the nervous system stays anchored in a sense of safety. This helps the brain do what it couldn’t do at the time: file the memory away where it belongs. The memory is still there, but it no longer carries the same charge, and the reactivity and distress begin to ease.

I am also trained in Brainspotting, an approach that grew out of this same work. Developed by David Grand, it rests on the idea that where we look can connect us to where we feel. Rather than moving the eyes back and forth, we find a single fixed point in the visual field, a “brainspot,” where the body’s response to a memory feels strongest. Holding the gaze there, in the steady presence of an attuned therapist, gives the nervous system space to process what has been stuck, often beneath the level of words. Where EMDR follows a more structured path, Brainspotting tends to be slower and more open-ended, which can make it a good fit for clients who feel overwhelmed by more directive approaches.

Both approaches share the same hope: not to erase what happened, but to help the brain and body finally know that it’s over.

The Tender Parts: A Guide to Healing from Trauma through Internal Family Systems Therapy

Long before I was a trauma therapist, I was a therapy client myself—disconnected and trying to make sense of my own pain. The Tender Parts is the book I wish I’d had then.

Part memoir and part guide, it walks you through meeting, understanding, and caring for the parts of you that protect you and the ones that carry your hurt. Along the way, I share stories of my own parts, so you’re never doing this alone. The book also covers how parts live in the body, attachment, dissociative parts, and the parts that show up in us as therapists.

Whether you’re new to IFS or already deep in your own healing, my hope is that this book helps you approach every part of yourself with a little more curiosity and a lot more tenderness.

Available in paperback from PESI Publishing and as an audiobook.
Get the Book

• EMDRIA Certified EMDR Clinician

• EMDR Child Specialist

• Internal Family Systems (Level 3 Trained)

• Somatic Experiencing (SEP)

• Brainspotting

• Nurturing the Heart With the Brain in Mind (Year long IPNB Intensive)

• Sensorimotor Psychotherapy

• Theraplay

• Certified Positive Discipline Parent Educator

• Maternal Mental Health Intensive - Seleni Institute

• Holding in Psychotherapy With Karen Kleiman

• Gottman - Level I

• Relational Life Therapy

• Brains in Session

• Tracking Neural Networks

• Directive Group Play Therapy

• Minding the Heart

• Sandtray

• Expressive Arts in Play Therapy

• Interpersonal Neurobiology Immersive Training with Julianne Taylor Shore

• Dissociation Training With Kathy Steele, Delores Mosquera, and Ana Gomez

• Mental Healthcare for Trans+ Clients

• Boss Babes ATX Community Caucus-Panel Moderator - "On Self Care and Social Justice"

• Bonding With Baby: An Attachment Workshop for New Parents

• PSI Conference: Processing Birth Trauma, a Relational Approach

• Forbes: 20 Messages of Self Care for Working Moms on Mother's Day

• “…But Have You Considered Therapy?” Episode 65: Postpartum Depression

• “Something Was Wrong” Mental Health, Boundaries, and Self Care During COVID-19 Featuring Ilyse Kennedy, LPC, LMFT-A, PMH-C

• “How to Care for Your Mental Health in A Crisis”

• “How to Talk to Toddlers About Race According to Experts.”

• “Counselors Share How to Talk to Kids About Racism”

• “Something Was Wrong” Tech Trauma Featuring Ilyse Kennedy, LPC, LMFT, PMH-C

• “The Healing Trauma Podcast” Children, Adolescence, and Trauma With Ilyse Kennedy

• “How to Get Your Child Ready to Go Back to in Person School, According to Experts”

• The Washington Post: “What is White Racial Identity?”

• Austin Fit Magazine: “Cooped Up Couples”

• St. Edward's University – M.A. in Counseling

• Licensed Professional Counselor

• Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist

• Loyola Marymount University – B.A. in English - Journalism

$220 for 50-minute Individual Session

$245 for 50-minute Couples Session

$275 for 80-minute session

$575 for 3 hour intensive session