Kristilee (Kristi) Cappaert
Compassionate, practical therapy for life transitions
About Kristilee
Kristilee (Kristi) Cappaert is a licensed social worker practicing in Iowa who supports people managing stress, anxiety, relationship and family concerns, grief, depression, addictions, LGBT and intimacy-related issues, parenting challenges, anger, self-esteem, career transitions, compassion fatigue, and related life changes.
Background and approach
She also addresses specialized areas such as aging and geriatric matters, blended family dynamics, caregiver stress, codependency, communication and control issues, disaster-related coping, divorce and separation, hospice and end-of-life counseling, infidelity, guilt and shame, and forgiveness. With five years of clinical experience, Kristi draws on a broad clinical toolkit to tailor care to each person’s situation.
Her style centers on empowerment and collaboration, helping clients explore beliefs, automatic thoughts, and behavioral patterns while guiding them toward practical strategies. Kristi integrates evidence-informed methods including client-centered work, cognitive behavioral techniques, dialectical behavior skills, mindfulness practices, motivational interviewing, and solution-focused strategies to address immediate concerns and build lasting coping skills.
She holds Illinois and Iowa social work licenses - LCSW and LISW - and offers services in English for clients located in Iowa. Kristi encourages those taking the step to seek support to complete a brief matching questionnaire and schedule sessions according to her availability.
Practical Therapeutic Approaches for Online Care
Kristi commonly uses cognitive behavioral therapy and dialectical behavior techniques to help people change unhelpful thinking and build coping skills. CBT focuses on identifying and reframing automatic thoughts and testing new behaviors to reduce symptoms like anxiety, depression, or problematic patterns in relationships. DBT emphasizes emotion regulation, distress tolerance, and interpersonal effectiveness skills to manage intense feelings and improve communication.She also draws on client-centered principles, which prioritize the client's perspective and emphasize empathy, respect, and collaboration in deciding which methods fit best. Choosing the right approach is a joint process - the therapist will work with each client to determine goals, try techniques, and adjust the plan as progress and preferences become clearer.
Online sessions are offered via video calls, phone, live chat, or text-based messaging to increase flexibility for different schedules and needs. These formats allow clients to access ongoing support from licensed professionals without rearranging major parts of daily life, making it easier to maintain momentum between sessions and practice strategies in real-world settings.
Frequently asked questions
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Specialties and expertise
Top specialties
- Stress, Anxiety
- Relationship issues
- Family conflicts
Also works with
- Addictions
- Aging and geriatric issues
- Anger management
- Blended family issues
- Career difficulties
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Codependency
- Communication problems
- Compassion fatigue
- Control issues
- Coping with life changes
- Coping with natural or human-caused disaster
- Depression
- Divorce and separation
- Emptiness
- Family problems
- First responder issues
- Forgiveness
- Grief
- Guilt and shame
- Hospice and end-of-life counseling
- Infidelity
- Intimacy-related issues
- Isolation / loneliness
- Jealousy
- LGBT
- Life purpose
- Midlife crisis
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Parenting issues
- Post-traumatic stress
- Pregnancy and childbirth
- Prejudice and discrimination
- Self esteem
- Self-love
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Women's issues
- Workplace issues
- Young adult issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 5 years
- Licensed
- Illinois, Iowa, New Jersey
- Languages
- English