Heidi McKinley · IFS Therapist · Inner Worlds Counseling
About your therapist
Heidi McKinley
M.S., P-LPC, NCC · IFS Therapist · Founder
I'm deeply interested in the inner world — how we define ourselves in relation to others, what shapes us, what heals us, and how we grow into our most authentic selves.
My Story
A different kind of path to this work.
Before I became a therapist, I worked in creative and service-driven jobs — as a hairstylist, a writer, a bartender, and a teacher. I earned my MFA in Creative Nonfiction and spent years helping others understand themselves through story. That love for narrative — especially the hidden, character-driven, emotional kind — naturally led me to therapy.
What drew me into this work on a deeper level was my own healing journey — ongoing, as all real healing is. Like many of my clients, I went through seasons of searching and self-discovery. I found myself caught in patterns I couldn't logic my way out of. Internal Family Systems is one piece of a holistic model of healing that helped me understand my experience — it gave me a way to truly transform it and to communicate directly with my intuition.
IFS teaches that we all have a core Self — a steady, compassionate, wise presence within us that can care for every part of us. The angry parts. The parts that engage in destructive habits. The vulnerable inner children who never got what they needed. I stopped trying to fix myself and started listening to the parts of me that had never felt fully seen. That's what I help others do now.
Many of my clients have experienced attachment wounds, self-doubt, or burnout from trying to be everything to everyone. I also have a particular passion for helping those with religious trauma reconnect to a sense of spirituality on their own terms.
My style is experiential, creative, and depth-oriented. Together, we'll explore your inner world with curiosity — not judgment. We'll find the protective strategies that helped you survive, and the parts of you that are still waiting to be met with love. I bring tools from IFS, EMDR, and AEDP into our work so that healing is not just possible, but transformational.
You are the author of your own story. I'm here to help you remember that — and to walk beside you as you write the next chapter.
How I work
My Approach
My work is grounded in a simple but profound belief — that every part of you developed for a reason, and that real healing doesn't come from overriding or managing those parts, but from building a genuine relationship with them.
Using IFS, EMDR, and AEDP as my primary frameworks, we'll work together to gently access deeper layers of your emotional world. We'll meet the parts that carry pain and the parts that have been working overtime to protect you from it. We'll build the conditions — safety, curiosity, Self-energy — that allow real transformation to happen.
This is not just talk therapy. It's experiential work that unfolds at the pace of safety and connection. Insight is valuable — but in this work, we go beyond insight into something more embodied, more felt, more lasting.
I don't believe there is a universal approach to healing. Each person's system is different — shaped by different experiences, organized around different protectors, ready to move at its own pace. My job is to meet your system where it actually is, not where a protocol says it should be.
"I believe there is no universal approach to therapy. I tailor every session specifically for each client — to reflect their individual system, their pace, and their needs."
All sessions conducted via secure telehealth — Wisconsin and Louisiana.
Training & Certifications
- IFS Level 1 — Internal Family Systems Institute
- EMDR trained
- AEDP Level 1 — Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy
- Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy (KAP) trained
- Narrative Therapy trained
- AIT trained
Education
M.S. Clinical Counseling
Loyola University, New Orleans · 2023
M.F.A. Creative Nonfiction Writing
University of New Orleans · 2018
B.A. Psychology & Journalism
University of Iowa · 2015
B.A. Religious Studies
University of Northern Iowa · 2010
Ready to begin?
Individual therapy, IFS depth sessions, and trauma reprocessing intensives — telehealth in Wisconsin and Louisiana.