Why Keiko?
I am a proud Japanese American social worker and have always loved the meaning behind my middle name, Keiko: happy child. In this work, I aim to support my clients find meaningful happiness and process through traumas and conflicts that may be inhibiting their ability to feel joy. Whether it’s a child or an inner child, my hope is to support you in being happy.
About Keiko Experiential Therapy, LLC
At Keiko Experiential Therapy, I am passionate about integrating experiential practices such as play, expressive arts, and animal assisted interventions into my therapeutic practice. I use an eclectic approach, integrating aspects of client-centered, experiential, and synergetic play therapy work with littles and pull from Rogerian, CBT, DBT, and Feminist Theory in my work with older clients.
I believe in the power of joy, play, and connecting beyond just words in healing journeys and aim to tailor therapeutic experiences to those I am serving.
I offer in-person, telehealth, and walk & talk sessions.
How to Start Services
Please reach out to me by email or phone to set up a free 15 minute consultation to see if we’d be a good fit!
Email: keikoexperientialtherapy@gmail.com
Call: 720-295-1729
Welcome to the space!
The Play Room
Welcome to the play room! There are tons of toys including cars, dolls, doctor kits, toy kitchen & food, fort building supplies, stuffies, punching bags, baby dolls, costumes, and more!
The Plant Room
Welcome to our quietest space! Just a couch, a chair, and lots of plants. It’s quiet, calm, and serene.
The Front Room
This room doesn’t have a very exciting name, but it’s hard to describe with just one word. This is a room with lots of cozy and moveable furniture, a sandtray, an inclusive doll house, and tech games for clients who want to integrate that into therapy and who it’s appropriate for.
Nice to meet you!
My name is Claire Willis! I’m a clinical social work candidate. I received my Master’s in Social Work from Columbia University with a focus in Advanced Clinical Practice and Children’s and Family Services. I am certified as an Animal Assisted Psychotherapist and hope to one day bring my therapy cats, Benji and Mikey, into sessions for clients who wish to work with them and are appropriate fits for animal assisted work. I am currently working towards becoming a registered play therapist.
My background is in experiential and outdoor education with a focus on creating community and developing socio-emotional skills in the backcountry. My therapeutic experience has ranged from working with children, adolescents, survivors of intimate partner violence, and animal assisted psychotherapy.
I specialize in working with children and pre-teens ages 3-13 who are coping with early childhood trauma, emotional regulation struggles, identity exploration, and bullying. I believe in supporting young humans as they explore the world and who they are and work with many non-binary, therian, and counter-culture clients.
Additionally, I am passionate about supporting adolescent and adult women in processing trauma and finding themselves again!
Benji & Mikey
Meet my therapy cats! Benji and Mikey are two sweet souls who work alongside me in support people on their healing journeys. Benji and Mikey are brothers who have spent their whole lives together and often work as a team. They both get choice in if they want to come into work and if they want to participate in sessions. These two co-therapists are invaluable to the process through bringing joy, snuggles, and teaching others their own ways of coping, self-advocation, and boundary setting.
For kiddos
Here’s an introduction of myself and the play therapy process for children who are considering coming to work with me. This is a great way to introduce your child to the therapy process and hopefully take away some of the fear of unknown.
Hi there! My name is Claire! Thank you so much for coming to my website and getting to know me. I love cats, baking bread, playing UNO, and my favorite colors are orange and pink. I’m a play therapist! What does that mean?
Play therapy is a space where you get to use toys and arts and crafts to express what you’re feeling inside.
I have dolls, stuffies, play swords, Nerf guns, play kitchen supplies, a sandtray, games, costumes, a punching bag, and fort supplies in the play room that you get to choose from.
Sometimes therapy sounds scary and it’s normal to be afraid of something you don’t know much about. When you come to play therapy, you get to be in charge. You can pretty much do and say what you want to do and say in play therapy. You get to choose what we play and how.
Play therapy is about you! Talking about big feelings or things that scare us can feel really good. Play therapy is meant to help you with hard feelings and it can be really fun too.
