Darlene Kelly
Compassionate practical therapy for life changes
- Credentials
- LCSW
- Experience
- 24 years
- Licensed in
- Louisiana, Texas, Mississippi
- Languages
- English
- Format
- Online sessions
About Darlene
Darlene Kelly is a licensed clinical social worker with 24 years of experience. She offers steady, practical support for people facing relationship stress, anxiety, grief, addiction, and life transitions. She speaks plainly and listens without judgment so clients can say what matters to them.
Darlene’s style aims to help people find clear next steps rather than erase the past. Darlene focuses on helping adults with concerns like intimacy-related issues, depression, bipolar disorder, ADHD, and compassion fatigue.
Background and approach
She also addresses challenges tied to career, self-esteem, eating and sleeping difficulties, and substance use. Her approach combines skill-based strategies and emotional work to address both symptoms and underlying patterns. In sessions she uses methods from cognitive behavioral therapy and dialectical behavior therapy to teach coping skills and change unhelpful thinking.
Attachment-based and client-centered approaches guide how she builds trust and explores relationship patterns. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy helps when someone needs to clarify values and commit to small, doable changes. Her work is practical and collaborative.
She helps clients name a few realistic goals and practices to try between sessions. Darlene supports people through setbacks and helps them adjust plans as needed. She works from Louisiana and offers services to English-speaking clients, including those living outside the U.S.
She provides video calls, phone sessions, live chat, and text-based messaging.
How therapeutic approaches translate to online care
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, or ACT, helps people clarify what matters to them and take small actions that match those values. It is useful for stress, anxiety, and making changes when life feels stuck. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, or CBT, focuses on changing unhelpful thoughts and behaviors through practical exercises and homework. It is often used for anxiety, depression, sleep issues, and coping skills. Attachment-Based Therapy looks at how early relationship patterns affect current connections and helps people change how they relate to others and to themselves.Darlene approaches choosing a method as a collaborative process. She will talk with clients about goals, try different techniques, and adjust the plan based on what helps most. The focus is on finding a fit that feels comfortable and produces steady, manageable progress.
Online therapy offers flexibility for people with busy schedules or who live far from Louisiana. Video calls allow face-to-face conversations, while phone sessions, live chat, and text messaging make it possible to connect in shorter or more frequent ways. Those options can make it easier to practice new skills between sessions and to get support when life becomes difficult.
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)
Less about arguing with difficult thoughts, more about loosening their grip and acting on what matters to you anyway. Values and committed action carry the work, which suits conversation at a distance.
Attachment-Based Therapy
Looks at how early bonds shaped what you expect from closeness, and how that plays out now with a partner, a parent, or your own children.
Client-Centered Therapy
The direction comes from you rather than from a set programme. The therapist offers a warm, non-judgemental space to think out loud and work at your own pace. Online, this rests on the relationship rather than on being in the same room.
Frequently asked questions
What concerns does Darlene address?
What is her therapeutic style like?
How much experience does she have?
What credentials and location apply to her practice?
Which languages and international clients are supported?
What session formats are available?
How are sessions billed?
How do I begin working with her?
Specialties and expertise
Top specialties
- LGBT
- Trauma and abuse
- Parenting issues
Also works with
- Abandonment
- Addictions
- ADHD
- Adoption and foster care
- Aging and geriatric issues
- Anger management
- Antisocial personality
- Attachment issues
- Autism and Asperger Syndrome
- Avoidant personality
- Bipolar disorder
- Blended family issues
- Body image
- Cancer
- Career difficulties
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Chronic pain, illness, and disability
- Co-morbidity
- Coaching
- Codependency
- Commitment issues
- Communication problems
- Compassion fatigue
- Control issues
- Coping with life changes
- Coping with natural or human-caused disaster
- Dependent personality
- Depression
- Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder (DMDD)
- Dissociation
- Divorce and separation
- Domestic violence
- Drug and alcohol addiction
- Eating and food-related issues
- Eating disorders
- Emptiness
- Family conflicts
- Family of origin issues
- Family problems
- Fatherhood issues
- Fertility issues
- First responder issues
- Forgiveness
- Gender dysphoria
- Grief
- Guilt and shame
- HIV / AIDS
- Hoarding
- Hospice and end-of-life counseling
- Immigration issues
- Impulsivity
- Infidelity
- Intellectual disability
- Intimacy-related issues
- Isolation / loneliness
- Jealousy
- Life purpose
- Men's issues
- Midlife crisis
- Money and financial issues
- Mood disorders
- Multicultural concerns
- Narcissism
- Obsessions, compulsions, and OCD
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Paranoia
- Personality disorders
- Phobias
- Post-traumatic stress
- Postpartum depression
- Pregnancy and childbirth
- Prejudice and discrimination
- Process addiction (porn, exercise, gambling)
- Relationship issues
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Self esteem
- Self-harm
- Self-love
- Sex addiction
- Sexual assault and abuse
- Sexual dysfunction
- Sexuality
- Sleeping disorders
- Smoking / vaping cessation
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Somatization
- Stress, Anxiety
- Traumatic brain injury
- Trichotillomania
- Veteran and Armed Forces Issues
- Women's issues
- Workplace issues
- Young adult issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)
- Attachment-Based Therapy
- Client-Centered Therapy
- Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
- Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)
- Emotionally-Focused Therapy (EFT)
- Existential Therapy
- Gottman Method
- Imago Relationship Therapy
- Jungian Therapy
- Mindfulness Therapy
- Motivational Interviewing
- Narrative Therapy
- Psychodynamic Therapy
- Solution-Focused Therapy
- Somatic Therapy
- Trauma-Focused Therapy
- Internal Family Systems
- Systemic Therapy
- Experience
- 24 years
- Licensed
- Louisiana, Texas, Mississippi
- Languages
- English
Next step
Talk to Darlene
- Takes a few minutes
- Nothing to set up just to look
- Stop at any point