About Kristen
Kristen Zavala is a licensed professional counselor who helps people facing anxiety, stress, grief, and trauma. She brings ten years of clinical experience in New Mexico and focuses on practical steps people can use day to day. Her rooms are held with a client-centered stance.
That means sessions start with the person’s goals and pace. Kristen listens for strengths, then helps people try small, manageable changes to reduce overwhelm and build confidence.
Background and approach
She often uses Cognitive Behavioral Therapy to help identify unhelpful thinking and try different behaviors. She also draws on trauma-focused methods when past hurts are affecting current life. Solution-focused techniques offer quick, goal-oriented tools for immediate challenges.
Kristen works with people coping with depression, panic, social anxiety, and mood disorders. She supports those recovering from sexual assault and domestic violence and people dealing with gender dysphoria, fertility struggles, or compassion fatigue. LGBT concerns are a stated focus area in her practice.
Sessions emphasize concrete skills such as grounding, paced breathing, thought experiments, and stepwise exposure to feared situations. Kristen also helps people rebuild self-esteem, set healthy boundaries, and manage impulses that cause regret. People who prefer a collaborative, practical approach will find concrete tools and steady support.
Kristen helps clients translate insights into everyday changes they can use between sessions.
How therapy approaches translate to online care
Client-centered therapy focuses on listening and following the person’s lead to set goals and pace. In practice this means the therapist checks in about what matters most and adjusts each session to meet those needs, whether addressing anxiety or rebuilding self-esteem.Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, or CBT, helps people identify unhelpful thoughts and try small behavioral experiments. It is useful for anxiety, panic, and mood concerns because it gives clear homework and step-by-step tools to practice between sessions.
Finding the right approach is a collaborative part of therapy. The therapist will talk with the client about goals, life circumstances, and what methods feel most useful. Together they can try an approach for a few sessions and adjust if needed to better fit the person's needs and preferences.
Online sessions are offered by video call, phone, live chat, or text-based messaging to increase flexibility. Video calls support face-to-face interaction and visual cues, phone sessions use less bandwidth and can be easier to fit into a busy day, live chat and messaging let people check in between appointments and use brief exchanges for quick coaching. These options help make consistent work possible despite schedules or distance.
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What this therapist works with
Most often
Also listed
- Addictions
- Compassion fatigue
- Coping with life changes
- Depression
- Domestic violence
- Fertility issues
- Gender dysphoria
- Grief
- Guilt and shame
- Impulsivity
- Intimacy-related issues
- Isolation / loneliness
- Mood disorders
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Post-traumatic stress
- Self esteem
- Self-harm
- Self-love
- Sexual assault and abuse
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Trichotillomania
- Women's issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 10 years
- Licensed
- New Mexico, Texas
- Languages
- English
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