Kelly Drake , LMSW

Kelly Drake is a Licensed Master Social Worker (LMSW) with 25 years of clinical experience in assessment, diagnosis, and treatment. She built her early practice around suicide assessment and trauma treatment for children ages 4 to 17, supporting young people with severe mental illness and histories of abuse across the Detroit, MI area while working in community mental health agencies and school systems.

Following that decade of child-focused work, she pursued a path as an Army Officer and social worker. During approximately ten years of active duty she concentrated on suicide risk assessment and trauma treatment for soldiers and their families, adapting solution-focused methods and applying Cognitive Behavioral Therapy concepts to address nightmares and sleep disturbance. She also received training in Cognitive Processing Therapy as an evidence-based approach for PTSD.

Her clinical foundation draws on family systems, psychodynamic ideas, free association, and strength-based concepts, blended with practical, solution-oriented techniques. Her therapeutic manner is calm, collected, and perceptive, offering accurate empathy while treating people with respect and dignity. She moves at each person’s pace but is direct about what is needed for change, viewing transformation as something that grows from the therapeutic relationship rather than casual advice from a friend.

For Kelly, social work is a vocation rather than just a job, and she expresses gratitude to those who invite her into the vulnerable places of their lives.

Therapeutic Approaches and Online Care

Kelly Drake integrates several evidence-informed approaches to meet varied needs. Attachment-Based Therapy focuses on how early relationships shape current patterns of relating - it helps clients work through abandonment, attachment issues, and difficulties in close relationships by strengthening a sense of safety and connection. Client-Centered Therapy centers the client’s experience and emphasizes empathy, respect, and collaboration; it supports self-exploration and is useful for depression, life changes, and self-esteem work. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) offers practical, skills-based strategies to identify unhelpful thoughts and behaviors and to develop concrete coping tools - it is often applied for anxiety, sleep problems, and trauma-related symptoms.

Choosing the right approach is part of the therapeutic process. Kelly works collaboratively with clients and other licensed professionals to determine which methods best fit an individual’s needs, goals, and preferences, and she adjusts the plan as progress unfolds.

Online therapy can make that collaborative work more accessible. Through video calls, phone sessions, live chat, or text-based messaging, clients gain flexibility to engage from different locations and schedules, making consistent care easier to maintain while still working closely with a therapist.