Dr. Katherine Qubain Ernst , NC Psychologist 6461

Dr. Katherine Qubain Ernst is a doctor of clinical psychology and a licensed psychologist who holds NC Psychologist 6461, the North Carolina license authorizing her to practice psychology in that state. She specializes in supporting teens, young adults, and parents, and focuses clinically on anxiety, depression, neurodiversity such as ADHD and autism, and LGBTQ+ individuals and families. Her practice also addresses parenting, relationships, trauma and abuse, grief, sleep difficulties, self-esteem, bipolar and mood disorders, addictions, and caregiver and multicultural concerns.

She trained academically at Swarthmore College for her bachelor’s degree in Psychology and completed her master’s and doctoral degrees at Widener University's Institute for Graduate Clinical Psychology. During her doctoral work she completed concentrations in Diversity and Cross-cultural Psychology, Children, Adolescents, and Families, and School Psychology. Her practicum and internship experiences included placements in a public school, a community mental health center serving children, teens, and families, and an inpatient drug and alcohol rehabilitation facility. After living for over a decade near Philadelphia, she returned to The Triangle in North Carolina in 2020 and spent three years in private practice working primarily with LGBTQ+ teens, young adults, and their parents.

Dr. Ernst approaches therapy and parent coaching with warmth, acceptance, and compassion, integrating third-wave therapies such as Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), along with Compassion-Focused Therapy and Family Systems work. She emphasizes an intersectional, trauma-informed, and gender-affirming stance when supporting LGBTQ+ young people and their families. She goes by Katherine or Dr. Ernst and uses she/her pronouns. She lives in The Triangle with her partner and their rescue dog and cats, and she identifies as a queer, disabled, Arab-American woman. At this time she is offering asynchronous, text-only messaging services for therapeutic and parent coaching work and is available to discuss whether that format may be a good fit.