Hugh Keating has 30 years of experience in mental health treatment across a variety of populations and settings. He is professionally licensed in Kansas, Colorado and Nebraska to assess and treat mental health disorders. He began working in mental health in 1993 at a facility for people with developmental disabilities and first became a licensed provider in 1999.

Hugh studied Studio Art and Psychology in undergraduate school prior to completing a masters in Art Therapy Counseling from Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. He moved from art therapy to talk therapy services early in his career after completing professional trainings on talk therapy practices. He does, however, continue to embrace his clients’ creative interests as part of their healing. Sometimes in his work with clients, a forgotten talent or creative interest becomes renewed as part of the healing process. Hugh underscores the connection between calm, openness and creativity; this “being state” also supports decision making, productivity, and resilience.

Hugh specializes in treating the effects of trauma, particularly regarding attachment and developmental sources of adversity, and how one’s experiences and epigenetic (beyond genes) factors come to bear on a person’s overall reactivity to life in general. Hugh’s approach emphasizes the client’s perspective and returns to this starting point: what’s important to you right now? His techniques are practical and usually effective, however, he’s aware that a given approach may not always be useful to a particular client because people are so complex and unique! It is his job, then, to adjust his approach-rather than client adjusting to the therapist’s technique. This flexible approach, always circling back to the client’s concern, successes and response to the therapy, maximizes the impact of the services toward the client’s healing, growth and satisfaction.