My name is Kiriana Gunn. But you can call me Kiri or Kiri G.

I am a Licensed Professional Counselor focused on working with individuals, couples, and families. After working in the corporate world for over seven years, I decided to make a major career change. I’ve always wanted to do work that could make a difference in people’s lives.

I want to help individuals adopt coping mechanisms that will assist them in accomplishing personal goals and help couples/families develop healthy & functional relationships. In the Black community, it can be difficult to open up about particular issues and their can sometimes be a stigma attached with seeking service or biases that come into play when working with a culturally-incompetent counselor. I realize that becoming a counselor can make a difference in reducing the stigma and spreading awareness of mental health issues related to Black people and women of color.

I have adopted this quote into my mindset since deciding to pursue a career in counseling.

When I decided to return to school, I did it because I was tired of working in a position that wasn’t fulfilling to me. After years of self-evaluation and introspection, I made the decision to start doing something I believed in. I believe in becoming a mental health professional to give help other Black people and women of color feel comfortable speaking about mental health issues. I want under-served people like Black people to be able to access mental health resources from people that look like them and can relate in ways that other mental health providers may not be able to. I want to help my community by becoming trained in counseling so that I can provide the tools to help build, maintain and grow loving relationships.

I created this website to document my journey to becoming a Marriage & Family Therapist

Originally, my vision was to create the blog as an outlet through my journey through graduate school. It evolved into me wanting to spread specific messages about mental health self-care, self-love, and gratitude through my blog, podcast (Kiri Keys) and YouTube channel (Kiri Keys). Along the way I created TheraTeeShirts (@therateeshirts) to continue to spread mental health awareness using t-shirts and various accessories. What started as an outlet as allowed me to build other paths that support my overall goal of sharing mental health resources with people that look like me.