Zaya Kuykendall, LMHC, LPCC

Zaya Kuykendall is a licensed mental health counselor and licensed professional clinical counselor with 16 years in the helping field. She aims to help people reconnect with themselves, regulate emotions, and clarify goals. Her style is collaborative and direct, inviting honesty and steady dialogue to support change.

She describes her approach as eclectic, drawing especially from Gestalt, motivational interviewing, and solution-focused therapy. In sessions she offers practical feedback and support to address obstacles people face. The work emphasizes building strengths, identifying feelings, and finding closure on unfinished issues.

Kuykendall highlights experience with domestic violence, child development and parenting, familial discord, women’s issues, and substance use. She has worked with both children and adults and has offered individual, group, family, couples, and e-therapy formats in her practice history. Her training includes a Bachelor of Science in Psychology and a Master of Arts in Professional Counseling.

Her way of working centers on steady progress rather than quick fixes. Sessions focus on small, actionable steps toward greater self-awareness. She frames therapy as treatment for mental wounds, helping people name problems, make a plan, and begin healing.

People looking for help with stress, anxiety, relationship concerns, trauma and abuse, depression, grief, addiction, parenting, ADHD, or life transitions may find her practical, strengths-focused approach useful. She practices in California and conducts work in English.

How evidence-based techniques work online

Gestalt work helps people notice what they are doing in the moment and how they respond to relationships and situations. It can make patterns clearer and support better choices in daily life. Motivational interviewing focuses on helping someone find their own reasons to change, which is useful for addictions, habit change, and moving through ambivalence.

Solution-focused ideas keep sessions goal-oriented and practical. These techniques emphasize small steps that build momentum and achieve tangible results, which helps when people feel stuck or overwhelmed. The therapist will talk with each person to choose which approaches fit best and will adapt methods as therapy unfolds.

Finding the right mix of approaches is a team effort. The therapist assesses needs, goals, and preferences and then suggests experiments to try in session and between sessions. Clients and therapist review what works and adjust plans together so the approach stays useful and realistic.

If you are considering online work, confirm current session formats before booking since the biography notes prior use of e-therapy but does not list specific options here. Online sessions can make it easier to fit therapy into a busy week, shorten travel time, and allow quick check-ins when life gets hectic. They can also let people choose quieter times or brief sessions that match their schedule rather than requiring a long commute.