Ascend Mind and Body provides therapy in Lakeland, FL at our South Florida Avenue office. Six licensed clinicians and supervised interns cover anxiety, depression, trauma, PTSD, ADHD, couples counseling, faith-integrated therapy, and bilingual English/Spanish care. Sessions run $175 initial / $140 follow-up with licensed clinicians, or $75 for supervised interns. Psychological testing ranges $1,200 to $2,400 depending on evaluation type. Call (863) 510-2624 or book online.
The single biggest reason therapy does not work is a bad fit between client and therapist. With a larger team, we can match you to someone whose specialties, style, and availability actually align with what you are working on - rather than giving you whoever has the first opening and hoping for the best.
Our Lakeland therapy team
Kaylee Mills Brenneman, Ed.S, MEd, LMHC is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor and Clinical Supervisor with graduate training at the specialist level. She oversees the intern team at Lakeland and carries her own caseload. Kaylee accepts UHC and Medicare, making her one of the few in-network therapists in Polk County for those plans. Her focus areas include anxiety, depression, life transitions, and clinical supervision.
Our Lakeland office also offers psychological and psychoeducational testing - including ADHD evaluations, autism assessments, learning disability testing, and comprehensive psychological evaluations. This is a specialized service that most therapy practices refer out; we handle it in-house with fast turnaround.
Skyler Anderson, RMHCI focuses on trauma, PTSD, and anxiety. Registered intern practicing under supervision, which means reduced rates ($75/session) while still providing structured, supervised therapy.
Ashley Huston, a graduate student intern from Northwestern's counseling program, is completing her clinical training at Lakeland under Kaylee Brenneman's supervision. Ashley now offers EMDR therapy for trauma as part of her mind-body integrative approach. Her rate is $75 per session - one of the lowest rates in Polk County for a trained EMDR clinician.
Conditions we treat
The Lakeland team covers the full breadth of outpatient therapy presentations:
- Anxiety - generalized anxiety, social anxiety, panic disorder, health anxiety
- Depression - major depressive episodes, persistent low mood, loss of motivation
- Trauma and PTSD - childhood trauma, domestic violence survivors, accidents, combat-related PTSD, medical trauma - including EMDR through Ashley Huston
- ADHD-related challenges - emotional dysregulation, relationship strain, executive function support (diagnosis through our telehealth psychiatry service or via psychological testing)
- Autism and neurodivergence - affirming therapy for neurodivergent clients
- LGBTQIA+ affirming care - multiple providers on the team are trained in affirming therapy
- Life transitions - job loss, divorce, relocation, grief, retirement, new parenthood
- Relationship and family issues - individual therapy focused on relational patterns, plus couples and family options through Lakeland couples therapy
- Faith-integrated counseling - for clients who want faith as part of their therapeutic process
- Psychological testing - ADHD, autism, learning disabilities, psychoeducational evaluations
What to expect at your first session
Before the visit. Fill out the intake forms online. Pick the therapist who seems like the best fit based on the profiles above, or call the office and we will help you match.
During your first session. About 50 minutes. Your therapist will ask what brought you in, what you are hoping to get out of therapy, and how things are going in your daily life. Nobody expects you to have a perfect explanation for why you are there. "I just feel stuck" or "something is off" is a perfectly fine starting point.
After the session. Schedule your next visit at the front desk. Weekly sessions are typical to start. Adjust from there as you and your therapist determine what cadence works.
What evidence-based therapy actually means
Our Lakeland clinicians draw from the modalities that have the strongest research base for outpatient therapy:
- CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy) - structured, skills-based, strong research base for anxiety and depression
- DBT-informed skills - distress tolerance and emotion regulation, especially useful for emotional dysregulation and BPD features
- EMDR - the 8-phase trauma reprocessing protocol endorsed by the APA, VA, and WHO
- IFS (Internal Family Systems) - for clients working on internal parts and self-leadership
- ERP (Exposure and Response Prevention) - the gold standard for OCD
- Trauma-focused CBT and mind-body approaches - for trauma presentations that need more than standard CBT
The match matters. A therapist who is an EMDR specialist and a therapist who is an OCD/ERP specialist are doing genuinely different work. Your situation determines which one is the right fit, not which one has an opening.