Kristy (Kris) LaRocca, MA, LMHC (she/they)
Director, Supervisor, Therapist
Kris brings to her work with clients, 11+ years of clinical experience with over 8,000 therapy sessions conducted. Kris strives to provide a therapeutic environment where clients feel not only safe, respected, and non-judged but also truly seen and heard. They believe that securing a trusting and sincere bond with their clients is of utmost importance before any real therapy can begin. Kris works collaboratively with clients to help them understand themselves more deeply and evoke meaning in their challenges so that they can ultimately live life more fully and authentically. She provides the support needed for clients to begin taking steps outside of their comfort zones and toward facilitating the changes that they wish to see.
Kris considers herself a genuinely integrative therapist, often adjusting her style to fit each client and their unique and evolving needs. They experience the mind and the body as intimately interconnected, and therefore take a holistic approach with clients. With knowledge and training in mindfulness, somatic embodiment and regulation strategies, Kris incorporate the wisdom of the body in helping clients to release past trauma, better manage stress, and find empowerment.
Kris provides individual counseling and relationship counseling. They have, over the years, become quite passionate about working with couples and have developed expert skills in this area. Kris embraces diversity of all kinds and applies an inclusive, anti-oppressive lens to her work. Kris believes that we need to deconstruct in order to reconstruct, meaning we must examine with a critical lens what we've been taught about ourselves in order to liberate us to become who we truly are. to She has extensive training and experience working with individuals of many various sexualities, genders, and gender expressions and with clients who practice nontraditional relationship styles (such as polyamory and ethical non-monogamy).
Kris received her Masters in Mental Health Counseling from Brooklyn College and has taught psychology courses as an Adjunct Professor at Brooklyn College for several years. She completed her internship at the Institute for Human Identity, one of NYC's leading training programs for LGBTQ+ affirmative psychotherapy. Kris very much enjoys contributing to the professional development of others and has done so through developing and facilitating workshops and seminars on various topics and also through providing direct supervision and guidance to the LYT team.