FOND DU LAC – "Buckle up because the only way out is through!"

That phrase is the subtitle to local counselor Kaitlyn Kenealy's book, "Healing is Messy AF," which she hopes is the start of a conversation to show that addressing mental health isn't a neat, straight line — and that's OK — as part of her main goal of destigmatizing mental illness and therapy.

She opened Kenealy Counseling, 131 S. Main St., in 2020 with an online practice focused on her areas of expertise as a psychotherapist: trauma, post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, depression and domestic violence.

Perhaps the timing, deep in the COVID-19 pandemic, may not have seemed ideal, but mental health is always important and it became especially so during a global health crisis and other collective traumas of the past few years.

Business picked up by the next year, and she moved to a bigger office across the hall for in-person services. Now, she has an extensive waitlist for new patients.

"It's kind of a double-edged sword in the sense that it's good that the business is growing, but then you can't meet the demand," she said.

For her specialty areas, Kenealy's practice includes cognitive behavioral therapy, dialectical behavioral therapy and eye movement desensitization reprocessing, known as EMDR.

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Her aim last March when she published "Healing is Messy AF," detailing many of the same skills and exercises she teaches her patients, was to meet a need for the patients she can't see, while also making the concepts she includes less intimidating, she said.

"The book really is kind of like a soft sell on therapy," she said. "It's my personal experience (and) my clinical experience intertwined with patient experiences, and then I give people tangible and practical skills that they could actually utilize at home."

It's structured with a chapter on barriers to therapy for starters, then weaves in chapters on self care and affirmation with heavier topics, like trauma and suicide ideation, so the lighter topics would bring up the vibe of the book and make it more accessible.

"In order to take something and make it less stigmatized, we have to be able to own it," Kenealy said. "And this s--- is messy."

In December, her book won the Canadian Book Club Award for 2022 in the Business/Self Help category.

Other awards for her career include Fond du Lac Area Women's Fund's Woman of Achievement 2022 and the Young Professionals of Fond du Lac's Young Professional of the Year 2021. She also gives talks and other outreach events outside of her office, and was recently appointed to the board of directors for Fond du Lac Area Women's Fund.

Prior to publishing her book, Kenealy had started a podcast called "Tea Time with the Psychos" with Liz Nelson, who also works at Kenealy Counseling.

She said the podcast was Nelson's idea, and she likes being able to hang out with her best friend. They talk about mental health topics in a variety of ways, with uncut and unedited episodes as another way to provide tips for mental health.

"We mix it up. Some of it's fun, some of it's playful, some of it's very serious," Keanely said. "We get feedback on what people like. They like our dynamic and that we take these concepts and make them less scary."

She added that the podcast has given her many patient referrals, and many patients start off trusting her to some degree because they've heard her talk and know she's relatable.

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For the next evolution of Kenealy and Kenealy Counseling, she said she wants to create more of a comprehensive or integrative approach to therapy in a larger space and make customized treatments following avenues that aren't just the psychotherapy — whether that's classes on healthy eating or a book club with Nelson.

In the mean time, "Healing is Messy AF" is available through kenealycounseling.com and on Amazon. The "Tea Time with the Psychos" podcast streams on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and Kenealy's website.

Contact Daphne Lemke at dlemke@gannett.com or follow her on Twitter at @daphlemke.

This article originally appeared on Fond du Lac Reporter: Fond du Lac counselor's book, podcast promote mental health awareness