About Kathryn
Kathryn Vella is an AASW social worker with six years of clinical experience. She helps people facing anxiety, stress and the fallout from trauma. Kathryn aims to create practical steps that fit each person's life and goals.
Kathryn combines clear psychoeducation with hands-on strategies. She explains how anxiety and trauma affect thinking and behaviour, then shows small ways to change daily routines. Sessions often include skill-building for emotional regulation and tools to reduce overwhelm.
Background and approach
Her practice pays attention to how relationships, identity and life circumstances shape distress. Kathryn works with people affected by coercive control and emotional abuse, and she supports those rebuilding self-esteem after intense relational harm. She also brings focused work for people with ADHD, autism spectrum differences and OCD, noting how these can interact with trauma responses.
Kathryn uses a strengths-based, trauma-informed stance. That means she starts from what a person already manages well and builds on those skills. She encourages self-compassion and practical problem-solving rather than blaming or pathologising.
Academically, Kathryn is finishing a Master of Clinical Psychology and plans to begin a PhD in Clinical Psychology and Psychopharmacology in 2026. Her research looks closely at coercive control and the ways trauma interlinks with neurodevelopmental and attachment differences. People who choose Kathryn can expect straightforward explanations, collaborative session planning and a focus on measurable changes.
She aims to help clients feel steadier, clearer and more able to cope with life changes.
Approaches you can use online
Kathryn commonly uses Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy in her online work. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) focuses on noticing thoughts without getting stuck in them and choosing actions that match personal values. It can help with anxiety and ongoing worry by teaching flexible ways to respond. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) looks at how thoughts, feelings and behaviours interact and gives practical exercises to shift unhelpful patterns, which is useful for anxiety, sleep problems and mood.Finding the right approach is part of the therapeutic process. Kathryn works collaboratively to pick methods that match a person's goals, needs and preferences. She will explain options, try strategies together and adjust the plan based on what helps most over time.
Online sessions are offered as video calls, phone sessions, live chat or text-based messaging to suit different days and needs. Video calls are good for in-depth work and non-verbal cues, phone sessions need less bandwidth and can fit into a short break, while chat or messaging can be handy for brief check-ins or when writing feels easier. These options make it simpler to keep continuity of care and to fit therapy around work, family and other commitments.
Questions people ask
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What this therapist works with
Most often
- Stress, Anxiety
- Relationship issues
- Family conflicts
Also listed
- Abandonment
- Addictions
- ADHD
- Adoption and foster care
- Aging and geriatric issues
- Anger management
- Antisocial personality
- Attachment issues
- Autism and Asperger Syndrome
- Avoidant personality
- BDSM, kink, and alternative sex culture
- Bipolar disorder
- Body image
- Career difficulties
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Co-morbidity
- Coaching
- Codependency
- Commitment issues
- Communication problems
- Compassion fatigue
- Control issues
- Coping with life changes
- Coping with natural or human-caused disaster
- Dependent personality
- Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder (DMDD)
- Dissociation
- Divorce and separation
- Domestic violence
- Drug and alcohol addiction
- Eating and food-related issues
- Eating disorders
- Emptiness
- Family of origin issues
- Family problems
- Fatherhood issues
- Forgiveness
- Grief
- Guilt and shame
- Hoarding
- Hospice and end-of-life counseling
- Immigration issues
- Impulsivity
- Infidelity
- Intellectual disability
- Isolation / loneliness
- Jealousy
- LGBT
- Life purpose
- Men's issues
- Midlife crisis
- Money and financial issues
- Mood disorders
- Multicultural concerns
- Narcissism
- Obsessions, compulsions, and OCD
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Paranoia
- Personality disorders
- Post-traumatic stress
- Postpartum depression
- Pregnancy and childbirth
- Process addiction (porn, exercise, gambling)
- Self esteem
- Self-harm
- Self-love
- Sexual assault and abuse
- Sleeping disorders
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Trauma and abuse
- Women's issues
- Workplace issues
- Young adult issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)
- Attachment-Based Therapy
- Client-Centered Therapy
- Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
- Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)
- Emotionally-Focused Therapy (EFT)
- Existential Therapy
- Jungian Therapy
- Mindfulness Therapy
- Motivational Interviewing
- Narrative Therapy
- Psychodynamic Therapy
- Solution-Focused Therapy
- Somatic Therapy
- Trauma-Focused Therapy
- Internal Family Systems
- Systemic Therapy
- Experience
- 6 years
- Licensed
- Languages
- English
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