Kara Denahan, LMFT

Kara Denahan is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT) based in Rhode Island with 23 years of clinical experience. She works with individuals and brings a calm, thoughtful presence to sessions. Kara draws on years of practice to help people facing stress, anxiety, relationship struggles, trauma, and other life challenges.

Her path to therapy began after a career in design and photography and led to a Master of Science in Marriage and Family Therapy from the University of Rhode Island. Kara later opened a private practice and has continued expanding her approach through study of mindfulness, attachment, and parts work. She integrates those perspectives into everyday, practical help.

In sessions she uses Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) alongside attachment-based and client-centered methods. That means she helps people notice unhelpful thoughts and patterns, strengthen important relationships, and build on personal strengths. Sessions aim to be straightforward and useful rather than overly technical.

Kara commonly helps with mood concerns such as depression and bipolar symptoms, anxiety and stress, trauma and abuse, grief, and issues around intimacy and family problems. She also supports people dealing with ADHD, addiction, parenting strain, career stress, and compassion fatigue.

Her style is compassionate and collaborative. She listens first, then works with each person to set clear goals and try practical strategies. Kara values mindfulness and self-acceptance as part of lasting change.

How Kara’s approaches translate to online therapy

Online sessions with Kara draw on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy to help people identify and shift unhelpful thoughts and behaviors. CBT offers concrete tools for anxiety, low mood, sleep problems, and coping with life changes that can be practiced between sessions.

She also uses Attachment-Based Therapy ideas to look at how patterns in relationships shape feelings and reactions. This approach helps people understand connection and repair, and it can be useful for intimacy issues, communication problems, and family-related stress.

Kara emphasizes a client-centered stance, which means the work is guided by each person’s goals and preferences. Together the therapist and client decide which methods to try and adjust the plan as needed in a collaborative way.

Offering video, phone, live chat, and text-based messaging makes it easier to fit therapy into a busy life. Video calls allow face-to-face conversation and visual cues, phone sessions can work well when bandwidth is limited, and chat or messaging can be used for shorter check-ins or when typing feels more comfortable. These options increase flexibility so people can access regular support in ways that fit their routines.