Kelly Drake, LMSW

Kelly Drake, LMSW (Licensed Master Social Worker), brings 25 years of clinical social work experience in assessment, diagnosis, and treatment. She built a foundational practice informed by family systems, psychodynamic ideas, free association, and strength-based perspectives, and has worked across community mental health agencies and school systems in the Detroit, Michigan area. Early in her career she focused on suicide assessment and trauma treatment for children ages 4 to 17, often supporting youth with severe mental illness and histories of abuse.

After exploring military service, she joined the U.S. Army as an officer and social worker. During a decade of active duty she concentrated on suicide risk assessment and trauma treatment for soldiers and their families, applying solution-focused methods and adapting cognitive behavioral techniques to address nightmares and sleep disturbances. She also trained in Cognitive Processing Therapy as an evidence-based approach for PTSD treatment.

Kelly's therapeutic manner is calm, collected, and perceptive. She offers accurate empathy and engages with clients respectfully and with dignity. She moves at a client's pace while providing direct guidance about the steps needed for change, viewing progress as rooted in the therapeutic relationship rather than casual advice from friends. For Kelly, social work is a vocation, and she approaches each therapeutic relationship with gratitude for the opportunity to accompany people through vulnerable moments.