Kristen Estrella, LCSW, IMH E® Assistant Director of Child/Adolescent Program, Licensed Psychotherapist Kristen Estrella, LCSW is a psychotherapist focused on treating trauma, anxiety, depression, and behavioral challenges in families, children, adolescents, and young adults. She is the Assistant Director of the Child and Adolescent Program at Lukin Center. As a therapist, Kristen strives to foster connection with her clients. She is passionate about strengthening the child-parent relationship and providing families with the necessary tools to set their child up for success. She tailors her treatment using a combination of mindfulness, play, cognitive-behavioral, and psychodynamic approaches. Prior to establishing her practice in New Jersey, Kristen lived in Los Angeles, where she gained extensive hands-on experience skills using cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) with adults and children with severe, persistent mental illness. During this time, she treated people suffering from anxiety, depression, post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), schizophrenia, and obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), as well as people living with oppositional defiant disorder, autism spectrum disorder, ADHD, attachment issues, life changes, foster/adoptive issues, and other mental health challenges. Kristen’s clinical expertise earned her national certifications in child-parent psychotherapy and parent-child interaction therapy, two premier evidence-based practices that address difficulties between children and parents. She is also nationally certified in trauma-focused CBT. Her specialization in infant and early childhood mental health earned her an endorsement as an Infant Mental Health Specialist through the New Jersey Association for Infant Mental Health, and led her to become the Child-Parent Psychotherapy Supervisor across three children’s programs in outpatient mental health. Kristen earned her Master of Social Work from Boston University, and her BA in psychology from American University. During Kristen’s studies, she practiced CBT under the guidance of Daniel Beck, faculty member at the Beck Institute for CBT.
