Emily Loynachan, LISW

Specialty: Psychiatric Mental Health

Affiliation: Central Iowa Psychological Services (CIPS)

Joined Story Medical in: 2022

Education & Accomplishments: Emily works with children and adults across the lifespan (age 4 and older) and provides individual, parent, and family therapy. She also provides individual and weekly group therapy services to people who are currently incarcerated. She is passionate about advocating for and serving LGBTQ+ clients and their loved ones, especially those in the transgender community.

Before becoming a therapist, Emily worked as an engineer and was a stay at home mom for 9 years. She had a transformative experience with therapy after I had some struggles with the birth of my third child. This experience inspired her to go back to school in my forties so she could become a therapist for others. Now this is one of Emily's favorite things to do - to help people make meaning of their suffering. She is honored and grateful to be doing this "work" - because it doesn't feel like work to me - and to provide a safe, judgment-free, compassionate space for people during difficult times.

Emily has helped people with issues relating to anxiety, depression, divorce, family relationships, partner relationships, children, parenting, grief and loss, career changes, trauma, LGBTQ+ and especially transgender issues, such as gender dysphoria and gender-affirming hormone therapy.

Emily has prior work experience in the Des Moines Public School district and with Orchard Place. She has been trained in Trauma Focused CBT (TF-CBT), Trust Based Relational Intervention (TBRI), Parent Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT), Motivational Interviewing, and have completed various courses related to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. Emily is especially interested in the use of mindfulness, compassion, self-compassion, and self-care. I have taken an 8-week Compassion Cultivation Training course and I completed a 10-week mindfulness and compassion educator course. She recently completed her fourth Jungian/depth psychology course.

If you are considering therapy, but worry that your problems "aren't quite big enough," Emily encourages you to give it a try.

"Please don't wait until things become too big, you are worth your own time and care," she says. "I encourage open communication and feedback and view therapy as a collaborative process. This empowers clients and helps us work together to personalize the therapy experience so that it can be as supportive as possible."