Kim Connolly
Experienced family-focused therapist
- Credentials
- LMFT
- Experience
- 35 years
- Licensed in
- California
- Languages
- English
- Format
- Online sessions
About Kim
Kim Connolly is a licensed marriage and family therapist with 35 years in the mental health field. She trained at Sonoma State University and holds California LMFT 44287. Kim has spent much of her career in nonprofit settings and brings long-term community experience to her work.
She meets people where they are and moves at a pace that feels right for each person. Sessions are warm and interactive, and she balances direct feedback with empathy.
Background and approach
Humor is often part of her approach when it helps people relax and connect. Kim draws on several methods so she can tailor support to the situation. She uses client-centered listening, cognitive behavioral techniques for changing unhelpful patterns, dialectical skills for managing strong emotions, mindfulness practices, and motivational interviewing when change is a goal.
Her practice focuses on family and parenting concerns alongside stress, anxiety, trauma and abuse, grief, self-esteem, depression, relationship strain, eating and anger issues, and coping with life changes. She also has experience with adoption and foster care, attachment questions, blended family dynamics, chronic illness and disability, and compassion fatigue.
Kim worked for many years helping people recover from physical, emotional, and sexual abuse and the problems that follow. She understands the ripple effects of loss and major life transitions, including the shifts families faced during recent public health events. She provides care from California and conducts sessions in English.
People who value practical tools, steady support, and a down-to-earth style often find her approach useful.
Therapeutic approaches and how they work online
Kim uses client-centered therapy to listen closely and shape sessions around each person's goals. This approach focuses on understanding what matters to the client and building a trusting relationship that helps people talk through parenting and family concerns.She also brings cognitive behavioral therapy, which looks at patterns of thinking and behavior and teaches practical skills to change them. CBT can help with anxiety, depression, eating issues, and everyday stress by offering clear tools to try between sessions.
Dialectical behavior therapy is part of her toolkit for managing overwhelming emotions and building coping skills. DBT skills teach calm, focus, and better ways to handle conflicts that come up in family life.
Choosing an approach is a collaborative process. The therapist will listen to your goals, try out methods that fit your preferences, and adjust the plan as needed. Together you decide which tools and pace feel right for your situation.
Online therapy offers flexible ways to meet - video calls, phone sessions, live chat, or text-based messaging. These options make it easier to fit sessions into busy family schedules, work around travel or caregiving duties, and keep continuity when life gets hectic. Licensed professionals can deliver most therapeutic techniques effectively through these formats, and the variety lets people pick what works best for them.
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.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
CBT looks at the link between what you think, how you feel, and what you do. You work on noticing unhelpful patterns and practising steadier responses. It suits online sessions well, because much of the work happens between appointments and can be talked through from anywhere.
Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)
Concrete skills for riding out strong emotion, tolerating distress, and handling relationships without things escalating. The skills are practised in daily life, so between-session support by message or phone fits naturally.
Frequently asked questions
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Specialties and expertise
Top specialties
Also works with
- Abandonment
- Adoption and foster care
- Aging and geriatric issues
- Anger management
- Attachment issues
- Avoidant personality
- Blended family issues
- Chronic pain, illness, and disability
- Codependency
- Commitment issues
- Communication problems
- Compassion fatigue
- Control issues
- Coping with life changes
- Coping with natural or human-caused disaster
- Depression
- Domestic violence
- Eating and food-related issues
- Eating disorders
- Emptiness
- Family conflicts
- Family of origin issues
- Family problems
- Forgiveness
- Guilt and shame
- Impulsivity
- Infidelity
- Jealousy
- Life purpose
- Mood disorders
- Obsessions, compulsions, and OCD
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Parenting issues
- Post-traumatic stress
- Relationship issues
- Self esteem
- Self-harm
- Self-love
- Sexual assault and abuse
- Young adult issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 35 years
- Licensed
- California
- Languages
- English
Next step
Talk to Kim
- Takes a few minutes
- Nothing to set up just to look
- Stop at any point