Kara Jean Brei

Kara Jean Brei (they/them) began their career in the mental health field in 2008 and brings over a decade of experience supporting individuals navigating complex trauma, substance use, identity-related stressors, and relational challenges. They work from a reality-based, forward-moving, and deeply trauma-informed perspective, helping clients make meaning of difficult experiences while developing practical and sustainable change.

KJB’s clinical background includes work with youth exhibiting concerning sexual behaviors, individuals with serious mental illness, incarcerated populations, and clients in residential and intensive outpatient substance use treatment settings. Most recently, they have worked with unhoused individuals engaged in high-risk substance use, providing care within an intensive outpatient framework. Their professional work is informed by lived experience in dual diagnosis and ethically non-monogamous relationship structures, which allows them to approach treatment with nuance, humility, and respect.

KJB identifies as LGBTQ+, neurodivergent, and kink/fetish-aware and affirming. They take a harm reduction approach and are especially attuned to working with individuals who feel marginalized, misunderstood, or “outside the norm.” They are well-suited to support members of creative communities, alternative lifestyles, and those who have historically not felt well-served by traditional or pathologizing models of therapy.

Clinically, KJB works primarily from an analytic psychodynamic framework, incorporating existential and narrative interventions to support insight, self-agency, and meaning-making. Their style is honest, engaged, and collaborative, with an emphasis on helping clients develop their own authentic solutions rather than imposing rigid therapeutic formulas. KJB has also received training in trauma-informed psychodrama processing.

At Trauma Recovery Services of Arizona, KJB enjoys working with clients of all ages who are navigating complex inner worlds, identity exploration, recovery, or the long-term impact of trauma. They are particularly drawn to individuals who identify as eccentric, alternative, or who have long felt like outsiders—and who are ready for therapy that meets them where they actually are.