Inner Worlds Counseling · Therapist Profile
Heidi McKinley,
LPC · Founder · Wisconsin & Louisiana · Telehealth
I help people get beneath the patterns — to understand the parts that carry them, and build a real relationship with what's actually driving their experience.
About Heidi
Depth is not a technique.
It's an orientation.
I'm a Licensed Professional Counselor specializing in attachment trauma, C-PTSD, and early relational wounds. I founded Inner Worlds Counseling with a clear belief: the patterns that bring people to therapy aren't problems to eliminate — they're parts that developed for a reason, and they deserve to be understood.
My work is experiential and relationally grounded. I use Internal Family Systems and EMDR in an integrated way — not as a protocol, but as a framework for genuinely meeting someone's inner world with curiosity rather than judgment.
I work with adults navigating the exhaustion of never feeling like enough, the weight of early relational wounds, and the patterns that persist no matter how much insight they've accumulated. I also offer short-term intensive and depth work for those ready to go further.
I'm actively pursuing IFS certification and bring ongoing investment in my own training and inner work to every client relationship.
Current Availability
Telehealth only · Wisconsin & Louisiana · Private pay · Superbills available
A good fit if you're navigating...
- C-PTSD or complex trauma
- Attachment wounds or early relational trauma
- Religious or spiritual harm
- Anxiety, self-criticism, or people-pleasing
- The exhaustion of never feeling like enough
- Trauma that feels stuck or hard to access
Ways to work together
Find what fits where you are.
Ongoing · Weekly
Individual Therapy
Waitlist openWeekly 55-minute sessions exploring your inner world, building relationship with your parts, and working toward lasting change. Relational, experiential, paced to what your system can hold.
$165 / session · Sliding scale available
Join the Waitlist →Single Session · No Waitlist
IFS Depth Sessions
Available now90-minute sessions for mapping your inner world — meeting your parts, understanding what they protect, and beginning to sense what they organize around. No ongoing commitment. No existing therapist required.
$250 / 90-min session
Learn More →Focused Series · No Waitlist
IFS & EMDR Reprocessing
Available nowA focused series of 90-minute sessions using IFS and EMDR to go toward exiles, process unresolved memories, and support real unburdening. Scheduled in close succession. Requires existing therapeutic support.
$165 intake · $250 / 90-min session
Learn More →Specialized Protocol · No Waitlist
Ketamine Assisted EMDR Therapy™️
Available nowFor trauma that's been hard to access or stay with in standard EMDR. Uses ketamine's neuroplastic window to support deeper reprocessing via telehealth. Prescriber required. Currently WI — LA with own prescriber.
$165 intake · $165 prep · $300 journey · $165 integration
Learn More →How Heidi works
This isn't just talk therapy.
Many of the patterns that bring people to therapy are not problems to eliminate — they are parts of you that developed for a reason. The work is not to silence them. It's to understand them.
My approach is experiential and depth-oriented. Using Internal Family Systems and EMDR, I help clients build a genuine relationship with the parts of themselves that carry pain, fear, and self-doubt — not by thinking their way through them, but by meeting them directly.
This means we go beneath insight. We work with emotions in real time, attend to what's happening in the body, and move at a pace the nervous system can hold. Change happens when parts feel genuinely met — not managed.
What is parts work? →Clinical focus
What Heidi specializes in.
- C-PTSD and complex trauma
- Attachment wounds and early relational trauma
- Religious and spiritual harm
- Anxiety, self-criticism, and perfectionism
- People-pleasing and chronic self-abandonment
- Depression and emotional numbing
- Life transitions and identity
- Therapist referrals for intensive work
Training & credentials
- MS Mental Health Counseling — Loyola University, New Orleans
- Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) — Wisconsin #12457-125
- Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) — Louisiana #9567
- IFS Level 1 — actively pursuing certification | IFS Institute
- EMDR Basic Training — EMDRIA approved
- AEDP Level 1 training
- Ketamine Assisted EMDR Therapy™️ — KA-EMDR Institute
- Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy (KAP) training Elemental Psychadelics
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.
Ready to connect?
The first step is a conversation.
A free 15–30 minute consult call — no pressure, no commitment. Just a chance to meet and see if the fit feels right.