Dr. Kai Gunty

Dr. Kai brings a nervous-system-informed, attachment-focused lens to work with neurodivergent children, adolescents, and families - with particular depth in PDA profiles, complex developmental trauma, and foster and adoptive family systems. His work is grounded in the conviction that behavior is communication, dysregulation is a nervous system state rather than a character trait, and that real progress looks like expanded capacity, not compliance. As a late-diagnosed neurodivergent adult and a foster parent himself, he brings both clinical rigor and lived experience to everything he does.

Dr. Kai has worked with children and families for over two decades. He partners with kids and caregivers on the practical and the profound - building skills, modifying environments, and creating space for identity, expression, and healing. He doesn't believe in treating neurodiversity. He believes in understanding how a particular brain works, what it needs, and what it costs to move through a world that wasn't built for it.

His approach centers regulation through connection, play, and engagement with what genuinely matters to a child. He has specialized training in SMART, the Safe and Sound Protocol, the ILS Focus System, and Anchored Relational Therapy / AIR Network. He also has deep expertise in ev (birth through age 5), using a protocol that centers positive experience, child autonomy, and consent throughout.

Education

MA, Psychology, University of Minnesota, 2010

PhD, Family Social Science, University of Minnesota, 2021

Training

Diagnostic Classification of Mental Health and Developmental Disorders of Infancy and Early Childhood (DC:0-5)

Sensorimotor Arousal Regulation Training (SMART) - trained in Foundations and Implementation

Safe and Sound Protocol

Foundational Integrated Listening System (ILS Focus System)

Anchored Relational Therapy / Adaptive Internal Relations Network (AIR Network)

Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT)

Trauma-Focused Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT)

Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) for specific phobias and OCD

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Areas of Focus

Adoption and foster care

Anxiety, depression, and other mood and/or emotional and behavioral disorders

Attentional challenges (including attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder [ADHD])

Autism spectrum disorders (ASD), including ASD assessment/evaluation

Complex medical conditions

Diagnostic assessment for children birth to five

Donor-conceived children

Gender identity and gender expression

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD)

Parenting Queer family building

School refusal and school support strategies

Toileting challenges (including encopresis and toileting refusal)

Trauma (including medical trauma)

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Licensing

Licensed Professional Clinical Counselor (LPCC) MN #3947

Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT) MN #4494

AAMFT Approved Supervisor

BMFT Board-Approved Supervisor, MN

BBHT Board-Approved Supervisor, MN

Dr. Kai is in-network with Blue Cross Blue Shield, HealthPartners, Cigna, UCare, UCare PMAP , Tricare, and straight MA (MN). Please double check with your network to ensure coverage.