Let me help you manage life’s challenges.
Get accessible and personalized mental healthcare from the comfort of your home.
My approach
My role as your therapist is to help you navigate your journey, pointing out mile markers and other signs, while your role is to be in the driver’s seat as the expert of your own world. My goal as a therapist is to integrate a variety of therapeutic approaches that best suit clients on an individual, case-to-case basis.
Krystalyn Madden
Counselor, MA, LPCC, LPC
The three main ingredients for a helpful therapeutic relationship are unconditional positive regard, non-judgment, and empathy. I am a believer that you are the world’s leading expert in what it is like to be you. My role as your therapist is to help you navigate your journey, pointing out mile markers and other signs, while your role is to be in the driver’s seat as the expert of your own world. My goal as a therapist is to integrate a variety of therapeutic approaches that best suit clients on an individual, case-to-case basis.
I typically pull from a variety of modalities, including CBT, DBT, ACT, somatic processing, polyvagal theory, and more. I also try to integrate an anthropological perspective into my therapeutic approach so you can learn why humans behave and emote in the ways they do. I am also trained in EMDR therapy.
I graduated with my BA in Psychology in 2017 and graduated with my MA in counseling in 2019, both from the University of New Mexico.
Specialties and Expertise
Anxiety
Chronic Pain
Codependency
Coping Skills
Depression
Divorce
Grief
Life Transitions
Self Esteem
Self-Harming
Sexual Abuse
Sleep or Insomnia
Stress
Trauma and PTSD
Remote options only
I am currently only accepting telehealth clients in New Mexico and Texas, and accept a variety of insurances. Inquire for more details about cost and insurance options. Private pay is also accepted.
Types of Therapy
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Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) is an action-oriented approach that stems from traditional behavior therapy and cognitive behavioral therapy. Clients learn to stop avoiding, denying, and struggling with their inner emotions and, instead, accept that these deeper feelings are appropriate responses to certain situations that should not prevent them from moving forward in their lives. With this understanding, clients begin to accept their hardships and commit to making necessary changes in their behavior, regardless of what is going on in their lives and how they feel about it.
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Attachment-based therapy is form of therapy that applies to interventions or approaches based on attachment theory, which explains how the relationship a parent has with its child influences development.
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Cognitive-behavioral therapy stresses the role of thinking in how we feel and what we do. It is based on the belief that thoughts, rather than people or events, cause our negative feelings. The therapist assists the client in identifying, testing the reality of, and correcting dysfunctional beliefs underlying his or her thinking. The therapist then helps the client modify those thoughts and the behaviors that flow from them. CBT is a structured collaboration between therapist and client and often calls for homework assignments. CBT has been clinically proven to help clients in a relatively short amount of time with a wide range of disorders, including depression and anxiety.
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Compassion-Focused Therapy (CFT) may assist individuals who struggle with mood disorders, anxiety, or feelings of shame and self-criticism, often stemming from early experiences of abuse or neglect. Through exercises like role-playing, visualization, meditation, and activities that promote gratitude for everyday life, CFT teaches clients about the mind-body connection and guides them in practicing awareness of their thoughts and bodily sensations. This helps clients cultivate self-compassion and compassion for others, which can help regulate their emotions and foster a sense of safety, self-acceptance, and comfort.
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Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) is the treatment most closely associated with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). Therapists practice DBT in both individual and group sessions. The therapy combines elements of CBT to help with regulating emotion through distress tolerance and mindfulness. The goal of Dialectical Behavior Therapy is to alleviate the intense emotional pain associated with BPD.
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EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) is an information processing therapy that helps clients cope with trauma, addictions, and phobias. During this treatment, the patient focuses on a specific thought, image, emotion, or sensation while simultaneously watching the therapist's finger or baton move in front of his or her eyes. The client is told to recognize what comes up for him/her when thinking of an image; then the client is told to let it go while doing bilateral stimulation. It's like being on a train; an emotion or a thought may come up and the client lets it pass as though they were looking out the window of the moving train.
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The humanistic method takes a positive view of human nature and emphasizes the uniqueness of the individual. Therapists in this tradition, who are interested in exploring the nature of creativity, love, and self-actualization, help clients realize their potential through change and self-directed growth. Humanistic therapy is also an umbrella term for gestalt, client-centered therapy, and existential therapy.
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Somatic (from the Greek word 'somat', meaning body) psychotherapy bridges the mind-body dichotomy recognizing that emotion, behavior, sensation, impulse, energy, action, gesture, meaning and language all originate in physical experiences. Thinking is not an abstract function but motivates, or is motivated by, physical expression and action. A somatic approach to trauma treatment can be effective by examining how past traumatic experiences cause physical symptoms (e.g. bodily anesthesia or motor inhibitions) which in turn affect emotion regulation, cognition and daily functioning.
Dance therapy reflects a somatic approach. -
Strength-based therapy is a type of positive psychotherapy and counseling that focuses more on your internal strengths and resourcefulness, and less on weaknesses, failures, and shortcomings. This focus sets up a positive mindset that helps you build on you best qualities, find your strengths, improve resilience and change worldview to one that is more positive. A positive attitude, in turn, can help your expectations of yourself and others become more reasonable.
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Trauma focused cognitive behavioral therapy (TF-CBT) helps people who may be experiencing post-traumatic stress after a traumatic event to return to a healthy state.