Kim Vander Griend, AM, LCSW is a strengths-based, client-centered psychotherapist who focuses on partnering with clients while moving at their own pace. Her collaborative style utilizes an integrative, solution-focused approach where concrete skill development is addressed. Kim’s approach to therapy emphasizes the importance of seeking and creating healthy relationships. She believes strongly in utilizing the therapeutic relationship to explore positive change and growth. Kim draws from family systems, cognitive behavioral, motivational interviewing and psychodynamic theories in her practice.
Kim earned her Bachelor’s of Arts in Communications Arts and Sciences from Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan. She earned her Master’s of Arts from The University of Chicago, The School of Social Service Administration. She completed her post-graduate clinical training at The Johns Hopkins Hospital, Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry in Baltimore, Maryland. She also was a Field Consultant and graduate student instructor at The University of Chicago, The School of Social Service Administration.
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Christine graduated from the University of Chicago’s School of Social Service Administration with a master’s degree in social work, focusing on clinical care and violence prevention. She has significant experience and training in trauma-informed care and anti-oppressive practice, and her work acknowledges the traumatic impact of systemic power and bias.
Christine has experience working with clients across the lifespan, as well as couples and families. With a trauma-informed perspective, Christine’s therapeutic work focuses on difficulties such as lack of self-worth, grief and loss, and relational conflict, as well as anxiety, depression, and difficulties with life adjustments. Christine enjoys supporting her clients in areas such as stress management, self-care, mindfulness, spirituality, emotional intelligence, healthy relationships, communication and setting boundaries.
Christine is known for creating a calm, relaxed environment that enables her clients to experience the safety and acceptance needed to explore their personal goals for growth, as well as the life hurdles that may be getting in the way. She also understands the courage needed to ask for support and respects her clients’ ability to work at a pace that is most helpful to them. Depending on her clients’ needs, Christine is willing to either support clients in developing insight into the impact of past experiences as a means of growth and change or focus primarily on solutions to current difficulties. Clients’ existing strengths and interests are utilized as a framework for continued growth.
Aetna
Aetna Medicare Advantage
BCBS PPO
BCBS HMO (Site 475 and 489) Humana
Medicare
United Health Care (UMR, BIND)
Hannah provides clinical therapeutic services to individuals and couples. She is warm, compassionate and eager to partner with clients. Hannah uses a strengths-based approach and believes in the power of therapeutic relationships. It is a goal of hers to listen and understand clients and help them learn appropriate coping skills that can help them outside of the therapy session. She understands the courage it takes to ask for help.
Hannah is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker. She earned her Masters of Arts from The University of Chicago, The School of Social Service Administration, where she was awarded the Brinks Fellowship in Family Support. For over 15 years, she has provided clinical services to individuals, families and couples. Hannah’s areas of expertise include working with individuals or couples impacted by infertility, high-risk pregnancies, grief and loss, parenting challenges, working through life-stage and career transitions, and experiencing depression and anxiety.
Aetna
Aetna Medicare Advantage
BCBS PPO
BCBS HMO (Site 475 and 489)
Humana
Medicare
UHC (UMR, BIND)
Anu is a licensed clinical social worker with 15 years of psychotherapy experience. She received dual master’s degrees in Social Work and Women’s Studies from Loyola University, Chicago. She previously worked as a hospice and palliative care social worker for 7 years at Midwest Palliative and Hospice CareCenter (now Journeycare) where she provided care for individuals and families coping with with terminal and life limiting illnesses. Anu was a therapist at Thrive Counseling Center in Oak Park for 8 years, working with older adults providing at home psychotherapy, and also doing individual and family therapy with adults across the lifespan. There, she started and facilitated a support group for individuals struggling with death, loss and grief. She was one of the co-founders of the agency’s BIPOC group. She currently teaches core courses at Dominican University’s Graduate School of Social work. Anu’s previous experiences include running a shelter program and counseling women escaping partner violence.
As a clinician drawing from Family Systems theories, Anu has been utilizing concepts of a person in environment perspective to recognize and incorporate knowledge of systemic “isms.” She sees the therapeutic relationship as a collaboration between the individual and the therapist while exploring and creating supportive systems in the community which continue to aid the client and family in their recovery. She works with clients struggling with chronic mental illnesses and focuses on depression, anxiety, trauma and PTSD, marital and partner dynamics and challenges of individuals on the neurodivergent spectrum. She uses narrative and feminist therapeutic models to recognize intersectional challenges experienced by women, people of color and LGBTQI populations. Her therapeutic style is empathetic yet directive. Anu often utilizes her background in yoga teaching to help clients learn ways in which trauma manifests in the human body and incorporates mindfulness and meditative practices in her work.
Aetna
Aetna Medicare Advantage
BCBS PPO
BCBS HMO (Site 475 and 489)
Humana
Medicare
BCBS HMO Medicare Advantage (Site 475 and 489)
United Health Care (UMR, BIND)
Sacha is a Licensed Marriage and Family therapist who believes healthy relationships are the stepping stones to healing, processing, and understanding not only each other but also ourselves. While utilizing Gottman, emotion-focused, strategic, and experiential approaches, she seeks to create a space for clients to feel safe in their therapeutic process. She also provides a space for couples to reconnect, rebuild, and redefine their relationship at each stage of their lives.
Sacha acknowledges each client’s experiences as their own while providing a systemic perspective to assist them in their process to self-discovery. She has experience with guiding both individuals and couples through life transitions, anxiety, depression, relational challenges, and emotional healing. Sacha often works closely with clients to build skills around communication, healthy boundaries, and interpersonal relationships. She understands for people to process life’s challenges they need to experience a supportive, earnest, and genuine environment. Sacha provides that with empathy, cultural sensitivity, humor and a deep care for human nature.
Aetna
BCBS PPO
BCBS HMO (Site 475 and 489) Humana
UHC (UMR, BIND)
Samantha (she/her) is a Licensed Social Worker, who became a therapist because she believes that change is always possible, and that humans have an inherent ability to heal and transform when they feel safe, heard, and connected. She understands that sometimes patterns of thinking or difficult emotions feel like they pull us away from living life fully. In session, Samantha works with individuals to identify their strengths, increase self-compassion, create safety in their bodies, and expand their capacity to respond in the face of life’s difficult moments. She’s also a big believer in the power of humor, and encourages her clients to bring their full selves into their work together.
Samantha specializes in working with young adults and adults as they move through life transitions. She has worked with individuals experiencing complex trauma responses, processing grief and loss, working through identity related concerns or religious deconstruction, and those struggling with shame, self-esteem/body image, suicidal ideation, depression, and anxiety. In her couples and relationship work, Samantha helps partners strengthen connection, navigate deep-seated conflict, and improve day to day communication. She has experience working with couples preparing for marriage/life transitions, and partnerships navigating the impact of trauma on their relationship.
Samantha shows up to sessions with compassion, curiosity, honesty, and hope, creating a space to slow down and tune into emotions, beliefs, and responses. While she often works in the present moment through using mindfulness and coping skills to manage immediate needs, she understands the impact our histories have on our sense of self and current challenges. She therefore takes a holistic perspective to treatment, and provides space to challenge societal messages and experiences related to sexism, racism, oppression, and marginalization, and their impact on your mental health.
She earned her Master of Arts in Social Work at the University of Chicago School of Social Service Administration, and her Bachelor’s degree in Human Service Studies from Elon University in North Carolina. Prior to coming to LifePath, Samantha worked with college and graduate students at Columbia College of Chicago Counseling Services, with children and adolescents experiencing community violence and trauma, and in the field of community development, where she partnered with a health center in Uganda to conduct human-rights focused HIV/AIDS research.
Aetna
BCBS PPO
BCBS HMO (Site 475 and 489) Humana
Jack Lionberger is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker who earned his master’s degree from the University of Chicago’s Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice where he was a member of a program of study that focused on the newest forms of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT).
Jack enjoys working with both individuals and couples, and draws most from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT). Jack takes an approach that looks beyond diagnoses, and explores the larger patterns and processes of behavior and thinking that get in the way of people’s lives and relationships. He believes that challenges like conflict, uncertainty, worry, sadness, anger, grief, loss and more, are the natural outcomes of being alive, and often contain important information for what matters most to us.
Jack has extensive clinical experience in community mental health, inpatient psychiatry, and working with frontline and healthcare workers. He has a proven record of helping people who experience acute anxiety, OCD, suicidality, PTSD, moral injury, addiction, interpersonal difficulties, chronic pain, death and grief, and more. Beyond any one theory, Jack believes that therapy should focus on a client’s values and strengths to help them get closer to a life that is authentic and purpose driven; he makes it his mission to show up to every therapy session with empathy, authenticity, care, and humor.
In his personal life Jack enjoys simple pleasures like cooking, baking, good coffee, playing bass, time with his dog, eating pizza, and beach days.
Aetna
Aetna Medicare Advantage
BCBS PPO
BCBS HMO (Site 475 and 489), BCBS HMO Medicare Advantage (Site 475 and 489)
Humana
Medicare
United Health Care (UMR, BIND)
Matthew Parsons is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker who received his Masters of Arts in Social Work at the University of Chicago, with a clinical focus in trauma. As a relational therapist, he fundamentally believes that healing happens in relationships where we feel safe, supported, and seen. To this end, Matthew above all else strives to cultivate a warm, collaborative, and non-judgemental therapeutic relationship.
Matthew works with individuals and couples and specializes in working with people with childhood trauma and PTSD, as well as those navigating their gender and sexual identities. He also has significant experience working with people processing the sudden loss of a loved one, dealing with complex medical diagnoses, and helping professionals struggling with compassion fatigue and burnout. Therapy will look different for everyone, but Matthew will seek to partner with you to explore difficult past experiences and current challenges in living as a way to better understand your inner experience. He draws from a range of clinical perspectives including humanistic therapy, emotionally focused therapy (EFT), internal family systems (IFS), and body-based therapies geared toward tuning into the physiological experience of emotion. Matthew will strive to help you deepen your relationship with yourself, even parts that you may not like or want to get rid of, while also working with you to make sense of your history so you may write a new story.
Prior to joining LifePath, Matthew worked in the trauma unit at Stroger Hospital providing counseling to victims of gun violence and their families, as well as end-of-life care. Before becoming a therapist, Matthew spent 5 years working in international human rights research focusing on health access across the Middle East. He received his BA from Tufts University in International Relations and Arabic.
Aetna
BCBS PPO
BCBS HMO (Site 475 and 489) Humana
UHC (UMR, BIND)
Medicare
Aetna Medicare Advantage
Payton is a Licensed Professional Counselor who is passionate about providing care for individuals and couples experiencing a wide variety of challenges. Payton creates a safe place for clients to feel valued, heard, and empowered helping to foster personal growth. As a relational-cultural therapist, Payton helps clients gain insight into how relationships impact life experiences. Payton has had substantial experience working with adolescents and young adults navigating anxiety, depression, life transitions, interpersonal relationship issues, and substance abuse. Payton focuses on exploring values to aid clients in uncovering their life compass directing them towards a more fulfilled and purposeful life.
We face many challenges and stages in life’s journey and navigating through its different phases can sometimes be a difficult process. Payton focuses on supporting clients through this difficult process and collaborating with a strong therapeutic relationship. The beauty of therapy is that it will look different for each person and will be tailored to specific needs. Payton also specializes in facilitating sustainable empowerment and personal growth for BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) community.
Payton is building interest in working with couples who are experiencing disruption in their relationship. Payton utilizes Emotion Focused Therapy and the Gottman Method to provide structure, space, empathy, warmth, and compassion. Payton is focused on helping couples increase awareness, intimacy, acceptance, regulation, respect, effective communication, and connection.
Her therapeutic approaches are centered around Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, Mindfulness, Attachment Theory, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, Client-Centered, Solution-Focused, and trauma-informed care.
Payton earned her Master of Arts in Forensic Psychology from The Chicago School of Professional Psychology and Bachelor of Arts in Psychology and Criminal Justice from the University of Northern Colorado. Payton gained invaluable experience as an intern in the Weld County, Colorado Public Defender’s Office and at Hartgrove Hospital where she provided counseling services to a myriad of individuals experiencing life transitions, anxiety, depression, interpersonal relationship conflict, gender-identity questions, and trauma history.
Outside of work, Payton enjoys reading, pilates, yoga, hiking, traveling, and good food!
Aetna
BCBS PPO
BCBS HMO (Site 475 and 489)
Humana
Each person is an expert of their own experience. Believing someone and accepting them as a human being worthy of love is the foundation for a successful therapeutic relationship. Kiernan deeply believes that when this supportive environment is provided, a person can begin to more fully listen to and trust in their own experience. This promotes greater self-awareness, and the ability to care for oneself. Kiernan works with trauma survivors and is committed to trauma-informed work.
Therapy is not just about addressing the unpleasant and troubling though; it also involves clarifying values and determining what gives your life meaning. Kiernan aims to help people discover what underlying stories they tell about themselves and explore alternative narratives.
Kiernan completed his Bachelors of Social Work at Goshen College and his masters from The University of Chicago, School of Social Service Administration. He previously worked as a substance abuse counselor in Virginia, and documented Human Rights abuses in Southern Mexico for two years.
In addition to a Person-Centered approach, Kiernan uses an Acceptance and Commitment Therapy framework for addressing human suffering. Distressing thoughts and feelings are an inevitable part of life; understandably we often try to suppress these painful experiences. He uses mindfulness and other experiential exercises with his clients to change how they interact with their thoughts and feelings. With couples, Kiernan uses a mix of the Gottman Method and EFT.
Other approaches used in therapy include Motivational Interviewing and Functional Analytic Psychotherapy. He works with individuals living with anxiety, depression, trauma, mood disorders, problematic substance use, and more.
Aetna
BCBS PPO
BCBS HMO (Site 475 and 489)
Humana
Maddie (she/her) is a Licensed Social Worker who is passionate about creating a space for healing and growth through empathy, warmth, and vulnerability. She understands the difficulties of sharing the deepest parts of ourselves with others and strives to make therapy an inclusive and safe space. Her style draws from trauma-informed practice, psychodynamic theories, and strengths-based practice. As a couples therapist, her style draws from Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT.)
Maddie has worked with individuals and couples experiencing sudden life changes, interpersonal conflicts, and those struggling with perfectionism, identity-related concerns, and mood and anxiety disorders. Maddie is especially dedicated to serving those who have been impacted by trauma. She believes in empowering others by making it possible to “speak the unspeakable.” She engages with each client’s unique challenges by first promoting safety and healthy coping and then with a focus on understanding how each aspect of our lives, from our pasts to our presents, impacts who we are today. This also means that she is devoted to promoting anti-oppressive practice, which includes acknowledging and challenging sexism, racism, homophobia and all forms of marginalization in and out of session.
She earned her Master of Arts in Social Work from the University of Chicago Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice and her Bachelor of Arts in Communication from DePaul University. During her studies, Maddie worked with the Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital’s Department of Psychiatry as a member of the Trauma Treatment Services team. She has also worked with children, adolescents and their families in both school and research settings.
Aetna
BCBS PPO
BCBS HMO (Site 475 and 489)
Humana
Deanna earned her Master of Arts in Social Work at the University of Chicago School of Social Service Administration and a Bachelor’s in Theatre from New York University. Prior to coming to LifePath, Deanna worked in community-based mental health treating violence intervention and prevention, child welfare, crisis intervention, LGBTQ+ identities and their intersections, foster care and adoption, grief and loss, complex trauma, and intensive outpatient treatment.
Deanna believes a person’s identity, values and beliefs guide their path of healing. Therapy can be a way of liberating ourselves from limiting ideas, societal messages, oppression and isolation. Deanna sees the client as the expert in their experience and collaborates with them to develop a space to learn and grow. Her therapeutic approach is both systemic and person-centered with a focus on inherent strengths and resilience. Deanna pulls from relational, attachment, family systems, racial trauma and polyvagal theories while using such modalities as ACT, DBT, CBT, TCI-F and Motivational Interviewing. She also draws, when appropriate, from her own life experiences.
Deanna’s peace comes from walking her dog, cooking, singing, connecting with my community and attending weekly meetings to continue recovery from addiction and oppression.
Aetna
BCBS PPO
HUMANA
Medicare
