Lacey Ryan
Parenting is the most joyful and most difficult job many of us will ever hold. All parents deserve to have access to tools that can help them calm the chaos in their homes and create lifelong, loving connection with their children.
As the Founding Director of Creative Family Counseling, I find great joy in seeing families find happiness and healing with the help of our talented team. It is my goal to help clients find the solutions for their problems as efficiently, creatively, and playfully as possible. Creative Family Counseling’s mission is to help homes become happier places, and we accomplish this through a collaborative, understanding, and empathetic approach to working with families.
Over the years, I’ve worked in various organizations such as non-profits, foster, and adoptive care agencies, community mental health, and private practice. One thing consistent about my practice is the use of creativity. Creativity can be as simple as thinking outside of the box or by utilizing one of the many expressive therapies available at Creative Family Counseling. Because humans experience expression, understanding, growth, and healing in many ways, the therapeutic approach and modality varies depending on the client’s specific needs. This individualized, developmentally informed, evidence-based, and integrative approach to serving clients allows healing to happen in various, powerful ways.
I believe that providing care and counseling for a child changes the future of not only that child’s world, but for the entire world. My true passion comes in meeting children in their current emotional space and helping to find and create more healthy spaces for them.
As a parent myself, a service I am especially passionate about is helping families develop healthier ways of interacting with one another. Oftentimes this comes in the form of Parent Coaching, Co-Parenting Counseling, and use of Positive Parenting Techniques, as I help parents find healthier ways to connect with their children while finding a balance of nurture and discipline.
The use of Play Therapy with young clients meets children at their developmental level, allowing them to participate in therapy in a child’s preferred way of interacting – playfully. Play Therapy facilitates helping clients meet goals such as emotion identification, coping skill development, solving problems, and increasing self esteem and confidence. Sometimes parents benefit from learning a certain type of play therapy that parents can implement at home, called Filial Therapy. Filial Therapy allows me the opportunity to teach parents the very tools I use in the play therapy room with their child. Parents can then use this powerful tool at home to help their children resolve concerns, improve behavior, and reconnect with their parents.
Serving as Creative Family Counseling’s Founding Director, I am responsible for the quality of services offered to the clients at our practice and provide clinical supervision, training, and leadership for the practice. I am a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist in both Kentucky and Tennessee, Registered Play Therapist-Supervisor, Kentucky Board Approved and AAMFT Approved Supervisor, and a Certified Positive Discipline Parent Educator. My specialties include anxiety, panic, childhood behavioral issues, parenting and co-parenting concerns, divorce/blended family issues, and grief. My intent is to help my clients find freedom and happiness and to develop a healthy support network as they pursue their passions. I feel it’s an honor and a privilege to be a part of that journey!
You can reach me directly at [email protected].