Kirstina Quast

Kirstina Quast is a Licensed Independent Clinical Social Worker (LICSW) practicing in Minnesota with nine years of experience. She helps people who are facing stress, anxiety, depression, grief, trauma or family strain. She also supports those navigating life changes, career doubts, relationship and intimacy concerns, parenting challenges, and issues connected to adoption and foster care.

Her background includes work across adult and children's mental health, residential treatment, child welfare, and adoption services. That experience shapes how she notices patterns in family systems and attachment concerns. She draws on elements from cognitive behavioral therapy and narrative approaches to help people get practical, usable tools.

In sessions she uses attachment-based and client-centered ways of working to focus on relationships and personal experience. She also incorporates EMDR for trauma-related work and motivational interviewing when people are weighing change or facing ambivalence. The emphasis is on finding methods that fit the person’s goals and daily life.

Kirstina describes herself as an outside-the-box thinker who uses creative problem solving. Conversations tend to aim for clear, manageable steps rather than long theory talks. People who come to her for support can expect straightforward talk about coping strategies, communication skills, and ways to handle overwhelming emotions.

Her practice includes work with grief, caregiver stress, addiction concerns, bipolar and mood disorders, fertility and hospice-related matters. Sessions are conducted in English and Kirstina does not take international clients. To begin, prospective clients complete a short matching questionnaire and schedule a first session.

How therapeutic approaches can work in online sessions

Attachment-based work pays attention to how relationships and early bonds affect current behavior. In practice this means talking about patterns in close relationships and trying different responses to improve connection and trust. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, or CBT, focuses on the link between thoughts, feelings and actions. It teaches concrete strategies to test unhelpful thoughts and change behaviors that keep problems going. EMDR is used for trauma-related symptoms and involves guided bilateral stimulation while recalling distressing memories to reduce their intensity; it is commonly paired with other supports for processing trauma.

Choosing the right approach is part of the work together. The therapist and client review goals, symptoms, and preferences and then try methods that seem to fit. That collaboration can include mixing techniques from different approaches as needs change over time.

Confirm the specific online session formats before booking, since the biography does not list formats. Online work can make it easier to fit sessions into a busy week, allow shorter check-ins when needed, and remove travel time. It also lets people use sessions to practice communication or coping skills in real-life settings and return to the therapist with what worked or didn’t. Licensed professionals typically adjust pacing, homework, and session focus so techniques like CBT or EMDR translate to remote work.