Meet Erin Kehrier, LCSW, LMSW
Your Ann Arbor and Houston ADHD Therapist
I help creative souls, dreamers, and ADHDers awaken their inner strengths and embrace their wonderfully weird selves.
I’m a licensed therapist, but more importantly your fellow weirdly wired wanderer and seeker of healing, growth, and authentic self-discovery.
I'm here to support you on your therapeutic path with gentle compassion, and open curiosity.
Meet Erin Kehrier, LCSW, LMSW
Your Ann Arbor and Houston ADHD Therapist
I help creative souls, dreamers, and ADHDers awaken their inner strengths and embrace their wonderfully weird selves.
I’m a licensed therapist, but more importantly your fellow weirdly wired wanderer and seeker of healing, growth, and authentic self-discovery.
I'm here to support you on your therapeutic path with gentle compassion, and open curiosity.
You’re here because:
✔ Anxiety has taken over your life and you’d like to restore balance to your nervous system and reduce overwhelming thoughts.
✔ You’re an ADHDer who wants to grow your capacity for self-kindness and authenticity.
✔ You’re ready to do trauma therapy work to understand the roots of your struggles and tap into your strengths.
✔ You’re barely keeping your head above water with overwhelming depression and want to feel energized, strong, and connected to your inherent worthiness.
You are not too weird or too much.
All parts of you belong here.
You deserve specialized trauma treatment that encompasses all of your ADHD experience.
You’ll find that at Common Current Therapy.
How I Can Support You
My approach is a mix of therapeutic modalities, focusing on trauma-informed, holistic, and creative practices.
Trauma-Informed Methods
ADHD-Affirming Approach
Self-Compassion Framework
About My Approach & Modalities
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ADHD Therapy helps you work with your neurodivergent strengths, capacity, energy, and focus rather than forcing yourself to conform to neurotypical norms. We’ll help you explore skills and strategies that help you function in the world in a way that works foryou.
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I’m trained in Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), a well-known trauma processing modality to help you facilitate the healing of distress stored in your nervous system and body.
I also draw on concepts from Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT) to help you address the ways trauma gets “stuck” and warps your beliefs about yourself, others, and the world.
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Polyvagal Theory sheds light on your nervous system's role in emotional regulation, social connection, and your felt sense of safety. It offers creative techniques to navigate between different nervous system states and help you feel more calm, grounded, and alive.
Somatic techniques and principles from trauma-sensitive yoga (TSY) invite you to explore your bodily experiences and better understand your responses to your inner and outer worlds. Emphasizing choice and pacing, you are empowered to connect with your body in a supportive way, building an internal sense of safety and enhancing healing and resilience.
This might include mindful movement, breathwork, and grounding exercises, or other body-oriented practices. It also includes tending to your fundamental self-care needs for nourishment, rest, hydration, sensory comfort, and movement.
Mindfulness in therapy can help accept your challenges, manage distress, regulate emotions, improve relationships, promote psychological flexibility, and encourage acting in alignment with your values.
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Self-Compassion is huge for me. With self-compassion, we use mindful awareness of our experiences, recognize our common humanity with others, and direct kindness towards ourselves to improve our wellbeing and how we care for ourselves.
Parts Work helps us understand and integrate different aspects of ourselves, fostering healing and transformation in relationships with internal parts, including uncovering protective elements and addressing patterns from the past.
Existential humanism allows you to explore freedom, responsibility, and your sense of purpose and meaning to foster growth and self-actualization.
Narrative therapy complements this by empowering you to reshape and reinterpret your personal and cultural stories and create new meaning from your experiences.
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Attachment theory explores how early connections shape our current relationships, fostering understanding and facilitating healthier patterns in relating to others.
Assertive communication and boundary setting helps create space for healthier relationships, caring for one’s needs, and more authentic connections with oneself and others.
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Challenging Systems and Norms - By examining the impact of social, cultural, and political systems, we strive to identify and address what’s harmful so we better care for ourselves, each other, and our world and move towards collective liberation.
Alternative Approaches - I acknowledge the diversity of human experiences and the value of alternative wellness practices that honor individual beliefs and cultural backgrounds. This may include connecting more with nature or integrating spiritual, creative, artistic, and energetic practices, alongside traditional Western medicine for a more holistic and inclusive approach.
Community Care - Building connections with supportive individuals and being part of a community fulfills a fundamental human need, alleviating loneliness, fostering a sense of belonging, and positively impacting mental health by creating an interdependent network where individuals exchange mutual aid and uplift each other.
How it all started
Masking without realizing
As a child, I did everything I could to avoid feeling ashamed, excluded, or bullied – and to keep the adults happy. “Don't be too weird or awkward,” was often in my head. I would sit back and observe other kids so that I didn’t miss a cue, or have something slip out of my mouth unexpectedly.
Looking back, I was “masking” – a common way that ADHDers hide or push down their ADHD symptoms to fit in and avoid the pain of rejection or judgment.
My late-in-life diagnosis
Fast forward to 2021, when I received my own ADHD diagnosis, late in life. Looking back on years of procrastination, people-pleasing, and perfectionism made every little experience snapped into place.
As soon as I realized how ADHD impacted me during my entire life, I realized how navigating an ableist, neurotypical world is inherently traumatic.
Making the connection for my clients
But this connection wasn’t made solely from my late-in-life diagnosis. It came from hearing Veterans share their struggles with post-combat PTSD or sexual trauma experienced during service – and my tenacious advocacy to ensure they received the appropriate trauma-specific treatment.
Much of what plagued them was how the trauma still persisted within them or how it connected to past difficult experiences that they could let go of. Their trauma didn’t just encompass large scale events, but the small, everyday events that culminated over time into depression, anxiety, and panic.
Coming full circle: ADHD + trauma
These two realities – the impact of a culmination of small traumas and the ADHD experience – made me realize that ADHDers experience layers of small and large-scale trauma by living in a neurotypical world. The shame they may experience as commonplace is actually a trauma symptom; the appropriate reaction to the constant messages of not measuring up.
Erin’s Education & Experience
EDUCATION:
✔ B.S. in Psychology, Michigan State University
✔ Master of Social Work, University of Michigan
✔ Licensed Clinical Social Worker in the State of Texas (#53290)
✔ Licensed Master Social Worker in the State of Michigan (#6801117135)
EXPERIENCE:
✔ EMDR Trained
✔ 200 hour Yoga Teacher Training
✔ Trauma Center Trauma Sensitive Yoga 5 day Workshop
✔ Two-day Workshops in Internal Family Systems and Ego States
✔ Polyvagal Theory Workshop
Puja Mehta Birak, LPC, MA
“Erin has this unwavering compassion and acceptance that creates a very safe space to process challenging emotions and makes her one of a kind in the counseling world. I have referred clients to Erin with confidence and will continue to do so!”
Yamilet Molina MS, LPC-A
“If you are looking for a therapist then look no further! Erin is a wonderful counselor that creates a safe place for her clients. Her dedication and commitment to her clients is admirable. I highly recommend her!”
