Today we’d like to introduce you to Kate Balestrieri, Psy.D., CSAT-S.
Dr. Balestrieri’s career as a Clinical and Forensic Psychologist is a second career. Before pursuing this field, she worked as an insurance broker. A true crime junkie, Dr. Kate was continuously intrigued by the benevolent and malevolent behavior of others, and she felt compelled to understand the motivations of others.
As such, she embarked on the path of graduate school, during which she worked for many years in various prisons, cutting her teeth on some of the most challenging and sinister cases.
Dr. Kate worked with murderers, sex offenders, and other violent inmates for years, closely examining their patterns and predilections. Armed with little more than an insatiable curiosity, Dr. Kate set out to investigate the role of trauma in people’s lives, especially in their quest for survival. She found that most people in the prison systems we much like the rest of us (who hasn’t committed some kind of crime?) but they generally had less coping skills and less resilience, which contributed to their inability to function according to societal norms.
She was especially keen on understanding how trauma impacted relationships, and how that led to some of the behaviors the incarcerated men and women she worked with engaged in. After about ten years of owning within correctional facilities and for various courts as an expert witness, Dr. Kate opened a private practice. Her work in the prison systems had given her much education about the pitfalls of addiction, many of the inmates struggled with addiction outside and within the prison walls, and she decided to focus on helping people in recovery.
In 2016, Dr. Kate, along with Lauren Dummit, LMFT, CSAT, founded Triune Therapy Group, a group psychotherapy practices that specializes in treating trauma, addiction, sex and relationships issues. Dr. Kate and her dedicated team are experts in helping people get back on track as individuals and in their relationships. Critical to her approach with patients are empirically based treatment approaches, empathy, and levity.
In 2018, Dr. Kate and Lauren started a radio show/podcast entitled, ” Behind Closed Doors with Dr. Kate & Lauren,” to de-stigmatize conversations around mental health, addiction, sex, relationships, and related current events. This podcast brings experts from many fields together to discuss various issues such as The Female Orgasm, Sex Addiction, Women & Money, Protecting the Coupleship, The Psychology of Plastic Surgery and many more.
Passionate about education, Dr. Kate has been teaching in various graduate programs for over ten years, including courses such as Sexual Abuse & Human Trafficking, Group Psychotherapy, and Psychological Testing. Currently, authoring multiple books geared toward helping others break through dysfunctional relationship patterns, Dr. Kate is a sex-positive psychologist whose main clinical goal is creating space for people to break their own chains and step forward into a life that maximizes their fullest potential and vitality, as individuals and in their relationships.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc. – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
Like most entrepreneurs, Dr. Kate’s journey has had patches of smooth and rough along the way. She was torn about changing careers, until an astute date (who had just completed his doctorate, challenged her by asking, “Well, what else are you going to do with your time?” With that, she decided to enroll in school. Her educational path balked from the traditional, and she worked full time while completing her undergraduate degrees. Her work as an insurance broker was lucrative, and going back to graduate school meant taking a substantial pay cut.
Dr. Kate was accustomed to a certain lifestyle, at the time living in Chicago’s affluent Gold Coast neighborhood, and it was a big transition to forgo a salary and transition back into the life of a student. She thrived. Having never been solely a student, Dr. Kate poured herself into her studies and proudly declared her status as a nerd, while simultaneously enjoying a robust social life. These were fine times.
Studying for the licensing exam was a task reserved surely for one of the circles of hell, and on the day of the exam, she left her testing groom, certain she failed. Nauseous for days, Dr. Kate was tickled when she learned that she had passed, and with flying colors! The rest of her career path is riddled with many of the ups and downs one might expect.
Working in several treatment centers, prisons, and in private practice, Dr. Kate was humbled by the work and honored to be a part of her patients’ process. The challenges that arise most frequently for Dr. Kate in this chosen career path are in her personal life. It is one thing when people sign up to see a psychologist. They are generally willing and curious about the process and expect to be psychoanalyzed.
However, in her personal life, Dr. Kate noticed that her enthusiasm for what she was learning was often met with blank stares, fears, or outright hostility from those who were more defended against whatever their psychology held true for them.
Dr. Kate’s choice to become a psychologist was met with opposition from some members within her family, as the script she’d been given was one made to align with traditional Italian values and gender roles. Good Italian women didn’t work in prisons, or talk about sex and relationship issues or addiction. No! They stayed home and baked and did not question that which was outside of that purview.
Well, that path is lovely for many people, but it never quite suited Dr. Kate, whose wanderlust for knowledge and quietly oppositional nature led her down a pioneering path where every stone unturned was a mystery to be solved and an opportunity for growth. Every human ache, joy, grievance, and glow had a reason, a story, and despite the hiccups along the way, Dr. Kate has never regretted one minute of the ride!
So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Triune Therapy Group story. Tell us more about the business.
Triune Therapy Group is a psychotherapy practice that specializes in treating a vast array of conditions related to trauma, addiction, sexuality, and relationships. We focus on understanding how the various domains of peoples’ lives intersect and help them reduce symptoms, feel more integrated and more confident in their ability to curate a life that aligns with their values and accesses their fullest potential, individually and in their relationships.
Has luck played a meaningful role in your life and business?
I’m not a big believer in luck, though there have been what some may consider positive and negative coincidences in my life personally and professionally. Often we are unconsciously several pages ahead of ourselves in the script of our lives, so tend to cultivate many of our experiences unknowingly.
Even when events are anomalous, we ascribe meaning to them almost immediately, based on our former experiences and internal narratives. That said, sometimes being in the right place at the right time is all you need for a door to open. Similar to dressing for the job you want, I believe it is key to show up for the life you want, and little by little the “luck” will become abundant.
Pricing:
- Individual Therapy Sessions $200 (per session)
- Individual Coaching Sessions $200 (per session)
- Groups $75 (per session)
- Workshops (Prices vary – call for more info)
- Intensives (Prices vary – call for more info)
Contact Info:
- Website: www.triunetherapy.com
- Phone: 310-933-4088
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: @drkatebalestrieri
- Facebook: @triunetherapygroup
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