Kim Griffin, LAC

“Therapy should feel like an exhale—not another place you have to perform.”

Some days, it feels like you’re carrying the weight of every loss and unspoken fear—where even a simple question like, “How are you?” hits like a wave.


You’re not alone, and you don’t have to keep bracing.


I help caring adults untangle the ineffective patterns and old wounds behind their struggles and heal the pain beneath them—so you can finally feel steady, connected, and clear about who you are, even when life feels overwhelming.


My approach blends practical tools to calm your body and mind with space to explore the deeper patterns behind your pain. We’ll move at your pace—whether that’s unpacking old trauma, navigating a major life change, or simply making space to hear yourself think.


And if it feels helpful, Jake (my therapy dog) can join us. She offers a quiet kind of comfort that helps many clients feel grounded and emotionally safe.


You deserve therapy that meets you where you are—with warmth, compassion, and space to be your full self.


Let’s connect and see if this feels like the right fit.

Eating Disorders - It's Not About the Food

By Kelly Lopez

If it’s not about the food, what is it really about?

The eating disorder serves a function, it does a job. Despite the problems an eating disorder creates, it is an effort to cope, shield against, communicate, and solve problems. Behaviors may be a way to establish a sense of power or control, self-worth, strength, and containment. Bringing may be used to numb pain. Purging may be a way to release emotions. When one cannot cope in healthy ways, adaptive functions (behaviors) are created to ensure a sense of safety, security, and control.
According to Carolyn Costin*, some of the “adaptive functions that eating disorder behaviors commonly serve are”:
It’s not about the food, it’s a way of coping with low self-esteem, negative emotions, physical, emotional, and sexual abuse, unstable home, difficulty resolving conflict and much more.
*Costin, Carolyn. The Eating Disorder Sourcebook: A Comprehensive Guide to the Causes, Treatments and Prevention of Eating Disorders. 3rd. edition, McGraw Hill, 2007.
Fuller, Kristen. “Eating Disorders: It’s Not All about Food.” Psychology Today, Sussex Publishers, 22 Mar. 2017