About

My name is Dr. Tracii Kunkel, but most of my clients call me “Doctor K.” I am a licensed Clinical Psychologist in both Florida and Washington State (literally, coast to coast). I received both my Masters and Doctorate degrees from Northern Illinois University, where I conducted research at the Center for the Study of Family Violence and Sexual Assault. Prior to that I spent a decade kicking around as a semi-pro rock musician. The thing that drove me as a musician is the same thing that drives me as a therapist - a sincere desire to connect with people at a deeper level. That drive has been with me since my earliest memories. I was trained in a primarily Cognitive Behavioral Therapy program and continue to lean heavily on Cognitive Behavioral conceptualizations and interventions. However, over the past two decades I have worked with a wide variety of clients dealing with a diverse range of mental/emotional challenges and psychiatric labels but with one thread that connects them all - every one of them at some point had been living their lives with meaning and purpose until something derailed that. Their symptoms/labels became the center of their lives, with everything else revolving around it. I found that it wasn’t enough to find relief from the symptoms - the absence of sadness/anxiety/anger is not joy/calm/tranquility, it’s neutral. The symptoms were not the real issue - the real issue was that in their attempts to avoid or escape the symptoms they stopped living a purposeful life. I redefined my role as a therapist. When people ask me now what I do for a living I respond “I help people find meaning in purpose in life again.” Although I have worked with everything from urban Chicago adolescents and teens to geriatric patients facing terminal illness, my main work since obtaining my Ph.D. has been with military veterans diagnosed with Schizophrenia, Bipolar Disorder, and Chronic Severe PTSD. The majority had multiple psychiatric labels (including depression and anxiety), along with physical disabilities and significant chronic pain. To get sent to me, they had to have been in mental health treatment for a long time with minimal results. I used to say that by the time someone was sent to me they had no hope left. However, I came to realize that was incorrect - they had to have just enough left to get through the door. Maybe that sounds like you. If so, you’re in the right place. If you aren’t quite to that point yet, you are STILL in the right place! As I have seen with so many non-veterans, the main issue these men and women dealt with was really that they had lost their purpose. As we focused on THAT, the other stuff became much easier to deal with. For some, those “symptoms” went away. For others, they may have remained but were just a piece of that person’s life, not the center of it. Most importantly, they learned that they did not actually NEED those symptoms to completely disappear before living life again. My specialty areas are trauma, anxiety, and depression, and any combination thereof. That said, for the past decade and a half I have also devoted myself to the issue of Adult ADHD. Current estimates suggest that about 5% of American adults live with ADHD/ADD. I suspect that is a low estimate. Unfortunately, not many providers are trained in this. Many feel unprepared to treat or even recognize adult ADHD. Worse, some have said “if you can treat ADHD in children, you can treat it in adults.” I strongly disagree. Adult ADHD is MUCH more than distractibility and concentration. For most ADHD adults, those are the LEAST of their concerns. If you are an adult with ADHD, you likely live with persistent depression. You are also likely to experience a general anxiety at times that you cannot explain, and a sense that you have not lived up to your potential. You can make friends, but keeping them is another story. Others do not understand why you do some of the things you do, and you don’t either. I want to help you understand those things, and then give you the tools to build a life that is meaningful to you not IN SPITE of your ADHD, but along with it. If you choose to work with me, helping you understand yourself is where it starts. Regardless of the challenge you are dealing with, the puzzle has to make some sense before you can start rebuilding it. You can expect that we will likely be using some Cognitive Behavioral Therapy interventions. I am certified in the evidence-based treatments of Cognitive Processing Therapy and Acceptance Commitment Therapy for Depression (ACT-D), and have been trained (and utilize) Dialectical Behavior Therapy, Imagery Rehearsal Therapy for Nightmares, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia (CBT-I), Acceptance Commitment Therapy for Trauma, Acceptance Commitment Therapy for Chronic Pain, and a few more specific treatments. I also assisted in developing a protocol to apply Acceptance Commitment Therapy to addiction/relapse prevention and the Narrative Enhancement Therapy for Self-Stigma program, as well as co-authored a chapter in the first APA book on Intimate Partner Violence batterer treatment. However, those are all tools focused primarily on symptoms. Together our ultimate goal is to build/get back to a life that is meaningful for you and consistent with your values. With that in mind, I also draw from a wide variety of evidence-based interventions including (but not limited to) Tai Chi, mindfulness, art, music, volunteerism, spirituality (not religion) - perhaps even equestrian therapy and Virtual Reality interventions depending on available resources. Bottom line - we do not just plug a hole in your boat to keep you from sinking, we rebuild your ship so that you want to go sailing.