Lisa Kim, LISW
In-person and Telehealth
Located in North Liberty Office, building #1
(She, Her)
Lisa A. Kim received her BA from San Francisco State University (1992) in Psychology with an emphasis in Women’s Studies (later called Gender Studies) with minors in counseling and human sexuality studies. She went on to receive her Masters Degree from the University of Chicago, School of Social Service Administration in 1995. Lisa worked and studied at the University of Illinois, Institute for Juvenile Research with advanced study in Family Systems therapy and group therapy while working in a variety of environments in Chicago. Lisa followed her then partner to Iowa City and has called it home since 1998. She is a Licensed Independent Social Worker.
Lisa’s professional career has focused on work with children, adolescents and families while also seeing individual adults. She has a passion working with teens and young adults, finding their mutual affinity for straightforward talk where we do our best work. Lisa believes the family is the healing unit and is sure to include them in her work with adolescents, so the entire family is supported. Lisa also has worked with survivors of PTSD, educating and building trust with insight, connections and compassion, using EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) with great success since 2002. Her work addresses client concerns with depression, anxiety and other mood disorders along with trauma.
Lisa has worked tirelessly with the LGBTQ+ communities, most frequently our children, teens and young adults, as well as collaborating with other gender affirming medical professionals, towards living a happy, authentic life. She also strongly aligns with a belief that therapists should embrace and exercise cultural competency while welcoming a diverse community of clients. Lisa has a down to earth approach, is both knowledgeable and relatable, that brings laughter as well as sometimes tears to the therapy room. Her approaches derive from a Cognitive Behavioral perspective, insight oriented, psychodynamic and humanistic therapy and can include experiential work utilizing narrative and creativity as part of the therapy process. A holistic, mindfulness approach informs all of her therapeutic work. She includes Internal Family Systems theory into her work, often in concert with EMDR.