About McKenna
McKenna Belgarde is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW) with ten years of clinical experience. She centers sessions on what each person wants to achieve and works with humility to support practical steps toward better wellbeing. McKenna focuses on helping people build on strengths and past successes to manage difficult emotions and life challenges.
Her approach starts with clear goals and small, doable changes. She helps people notice positive feelings and daily habits that support a more meaningful life.
How McKenna works
McKenna pays attention to how culture and community shape a person’s experience and draws on those resources during sessions. Clinically, she addresses stress, anxiety, low self-esteem, depression, and adapting to life changes. Additional areas she focuses on include attachment and abandonment concerns, body image, codependency, communication and control issues, and problems tied to family of origin or fatherhood roles.
Sessions aim to be collaborative and down-to-earth. McKenna uses straightforward conversation to identify what’s working and what to try differently. She encourages practical strategies that can be practiced between meetings to reinforce progress.
People who prefer a strengths-based, culturally aware approach may find her style helpful. Her background as an LCSW in California informs a practical, supportive method that emphasizes real-life changes over jargon.
What McKenna works with
The areas below are the ones McKenna selected when setting up a profile. The first few are listed as the main focus; the rest are also named.
- Stress, Anxiety
- Family conflicts
- Self esteem
Also listed
- Abandonment
- Attachment issues
- Avoidant personality
- Body image
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Codependency
- Commitment issues
- Communication problems
- Control issues
- Coping with life changes
- Coping with natural or human-caused disaster
- Depression
- Divorce and separation
- Emptiness
- Family of origin issues
- Family problems
- Fatherhood issues
- Forgiveness
- Guilt and shame
- Immigration issues
- Isolation / loneliness
- Jealousy
- Life purpose
- Money and financial issues
- Mood disorders
- Multicultural concerns
- Post-traumatic stress
- Postpartum depression
- Pregnancy and childbirth
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Self-love
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Women's issues
- Workplace issues
- Young adult issues
Training and background
| Register | LCSW |
|---|---|
| Years in practice | 10 |
| Languages | English |
| Session format | Online: video, phone, live chat or messaging |
| Country | California |
Memberships and registers are shown as supplied; they are not licences, and this directory does not verify them.
Online support options
Evidence-Based Techniques and Online Therapy Options
McKenna describes her practice as grounded in evidence-based therapeutic techniques that focus on practical change. One common technique helps people identify and build on personal strengths and successful moments to shift behavior and mood. This approach suits anyone trying to reduce anxiety, lift low mood, or gain steady coping skills.Another frequent focus is addressing attachment and abandonment-related patterns by looking at relationship behaviors and learning new ways to relate. These methods help with communication problems, codependency, and difficulties around commitment or control. Both approaches emphasize simple exercises and real-world practice between meetings to reinforce progress.
Finding the right approach is part of the work. The therapist will collaborate with each person to choose methods that match goals and preferences, and to adjust strategies over time based on what helps most.
Session formats are not specified here, so confirm current options before booking. Online therapy can make it easier to fit sessions into a busy week, shorten travel time, and allow more consistent check-ins. It also offers flexible ways to manage appointments around work, caregiving, or other obligations without promising a particular format.
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Common questions
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A practical next step
Write down two things you would want to be different in six months. That is the most useful thing to bring to a first session, whoever it is with. If you would rather start now than keep reading, online sessions are the quickest route.
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