Kyle ‘Gus’ Stephan

Kyle ‘Gus’ Stephan, MSW

He/him/his – what are personal pronouns and why do they matter?

Clients I work with: Children aged 2 to 18, families, caregivers/parents, couples, and adult individuals

Issues I work with: Anxiety, depression, parenting strategies, emotional regulation, coping skills, interpersonal and family dynamics, communication, loss and grief, identity exploration, life transitions, self-worth, trauma, trust attachment, defiance, behavioral concerns, and school issues.

 

My Approach

The building blocks of your identity are rooted in the relational experiences you had as a child, the world you lived in, the resources available, and the challenges life has sent your way. You are a culmination of all the messages you have received about who you are, what is loveable or acceptable about your personhood, ways to get your needs met, and what is safe/unsafe in the world. As these messages were communicated interaction by interaction, little by little, it can be hard to know how you have developed both your strengths, resources, and resiliency, and hurts, protections, and limiting beliefs.

As humans, we have an incredible and innate ability to respond to both connection and stress in resourceful and versatile ways. In an ideal world you will have experienced attuned caregivers who helped you organize your feelings as they arose, co-regulated you through the tough moments, and met your needs for connection directly. Where these were missed, your caregivers, hopefully, also knew how to make space for repair and reconnection.

For many of us, our parents didn’t necessarily have such a clear playbook for raising us. Despite their best intentions, you might have learned that some emotions or needs were not acceptable or tolerable, some needs would need to be met indirectly through adaptations such as perfectionism, people pleasing, playing small or withdrawing, or that some needs might not be met at all and would need to be ‘abandoned’ or minimized.

These patterns of interaction, protection, or adaptation may now be playing out automatically and outside of your conscious intention in your present-day relationships with family, significant others, and/or children. What may have worked well as a child or teen might not be working as well in adulthood, in love relationships, or in the parenting of your own children.

Research in the science of attachment, family systems, neuroscience, and trauma offers a clear map for understanding human identity formation, the ‘how to’ of creating secure connections, and ways to mitigate the impact of stress or overwhelm on adults and children alike. My role is to help you make sense of your identity, explore what ways of relating are working, clarify what is missing, and create the relationships you long for. I lean upon my clinical training to serve as a guide, support, and resource to you along the way.

Individual Therapy

I will support you in being the expert in your own life as well as facilitate a deeper and more fulfilling connection to yourself and the ones you care about. I am invested in collaborating with you to find ways to get your needs met and help you better meet the needs of others.

I hope to offer a warm and secure space for the exploration of self and relationships.

Throughout this process, we will weave in and out of your past experiences and present patterns. I hope to help you understand the ways you learned to adapt and protect yourself in earlier years, how they serve you today, and what might be limiting or keeping you stuck.

When you have experienced pain, overwhelm, attachment injuries, or trauma you can be vulnerable to building up protections, believing that you are unworthy or unlovable, or adopting survival strategies that limit your joy and potential. This can lead to well-worn patterns of managing emotions, interacting with others, or dealing with stress that limits the fullness of your identity and narrows the possibilities available to you in relationships.

I know that when you become curious and open towards your injured parts and missed needs, you can learn to show compassion, comfort, and acceptance for them. I can guide you in the journey of retrieving hidden aspects of yourself, offer permission to have needs and for these to be met, and unburden yourself of things that never belonged to you.

You deserve to live with abundant self-worth, clarity, connection, and purpose. You deserve to choose for yourself who you are and what is most loveable and unique about you. I hope to help you move through challenges and develop new coping mechanisms to carry with you after our time together comes to an end. Wherever you are on your journey, I will meet you there.

Couples Therapy

In my work with couples, informed by Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy, I offer a welcoming space that promotes curiosity, open communication, vulnerability, and change. Together, we will explore your relationship patterns, playing out in conscious or unconscious ways, that create disconnections, stress, and conflict within your relationship.

I primarily work with younger couples 18-35 who may be entering new stages of their lives and relationships. Whether it be preparing for a new level of commitment or living arrangement, the arrival or addition of a child, indecision of how to move forward in your relationship, or just feeling disconnected from one another, I can be alongside you.

I work to support couples in transition to reconnect, build trust, deepen emotional intimacy, and better understand their styles of communication, conflict management, and repair.

I honor the difficulty, pain, and confusing nature of conflict with the very person you long to be closest to. Recurring cycles, different ways of navigating emotions, or unresolved disagreements can be extremely taxing, disorienting, and frustrating. I know the extent that relationship struggles can leak out and impact other parts of our lives so I want to help you be a source of comfort, security, and safety for each other.

I help couples start to see more clearly the dance they are co-creating so they can access new ways of relating to and understanding one another. From there, I can help you find opportunities for connection, uncover the needs that underpin your interactions, and support you to be more open, accessible, and responsive to one another.

Child, Teen, Parent & Family Therapy

In my work with children (ages 2 to 18), parents, and families, I am always holding your multiple needs. I know that a primary need for every young person is to experience a felt sense of connection and security with their caregiver(s). The behaviors of your child or teen can always be made sense of when you view them through the lens of seeking connection, security, co-regulation, or validation. Most behaviors that are considered disruptive, out of control, problematic, or defiant can be understood as a protest against disconnection or change, indications of a missed need, or a signal that whatever is happening is outside of their capacity to cope in that moment.

I also know that as a parent or caregiver, your heartfelt goals are to communicate to your child or teen that they are important, valued, and loved. You will also be balancing this with helping them to navigate the challenges of their life and relationships in ways that promote connection, self-worth, unique personality, and individuality. It can be incredibly challenging, frustrating, and even disorienting to balance boundaries, structure, and a healthy push to grow with attunement, presence, and empathy.

It is painful to see your child in distress or feel unsure as to how to help them in the moment. This is when we can all be vulnerable to overwhelm, frustration, and the limitations of our own maps for caregiving. It can also be where our unresolved hurts can make staying calm, responsive, structured, and an empathic leader feel like a tall order. 

I make space for everyone’s resourceful, surprising, brilliant, and sometimes limiting patterns, responses, and adaptations. Together we can explore your interactions/patterns, what is working, and also the moments that can leave each family member vulnerable to feeling overwhelmed, helpless, frustrated, or misunderstood. Whether you are navigating anxiety, depression, negative self-talk or beliefs, limiting beliefs, aggression, isolation, loss, military life, life transitions, or interpersonal/family conflict or disconnection – I can be alongside you all.

I am a firm believer that while a child’s behaviors are the most challenging, these behaviors are always a response to something important. In my experience your family connections are the most direct route to changing behaviors, creating security and self-worth, and meeting a child’s needs.

I believe that any parent seeking therapy for their child is doing an amazing job of mobilizing for their child and is invested in them having a more satisfying experience in the world. I work with the belief that while I, as your therapist, offer new perspectives and provide direction for the therapeutic process, you are the most valuable resource and important mechanism of change in your child’s life. When I start working with families we will explore the extent to which we align in this belief, how best I can serve you in your vital role, and what you might need from me or the other parent to lead the process of change.

If you, your child, or your family are struggling, I hope to be a resource to you in a variety of ways. I am here to help you explore relationship dynamics, emotions, thoughts, and behaviors that may not be serving you or your loved ones as well as they could be. Together, we can build a shared language for talking about your strengths and struggles so that you can navigate the trials and joys of life, together, through every developmental stage. We all need help with building out our toolbox and learning what works for each person.

My Background

Through my time training adults in parenting strategies, as a foster care social worker, and through in-home services, I have gained skills and experience in attending to the parent-child relationship. I can help by working with you as a parent and with your child to make meaning of challenging behaviors and emotions as well as offer practical, in-the-moment strategies that are grounded in clinical research.

My experience in wilderness therapy and direct care services has helped me become extremely flexible, practical, and humble, whatever your family structure, struggle, or lived experience. It is important to me to stay curious about your experience and never assume how you feel or what you have been through. I want to learn what life is like through your eyes and how your lived experience has shaped you, especially with regard to values, spirituality, relationships, race, ethnicity, culture, trauma, or geographical location.

I will offer a client-centered approach and will tailor our work to meet your needs. I also want to be transparent about the models I draw from so can be clear about the lens I will offer. My therapeutic approach utilizes elements of Structural Family Therapy, Parent-Child Interaction Therapy, Family Systems, Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy, Attachment, Trauma, Mindfulness, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, and Dialectical Behavioral Therapy. I enjoy using metaphors, therapeutic initiatives, and enactments to deepen understanding.

I identify as an LGBTQIA+ ally, non-monogamy-affirming, sex-positive, culturally humble therapist.

I received my master’s degree in Social Work from Western Carolina University after working in the mental health field for eight years. Before that, I received my bachelor’s degree in psychology from Virginia Tech. I have experience in wilderness therapy, public schools, schools for the intellectually disabled, residential treatment, therapeutic boarding schools, foster care, and intensive in-home services.