Kaylen E. Goodman
Kaylen Goodman is a Hospice Bereavement Therapist and mental health professional based in Arvada, Colorado, with over 10 years of experience in the mental health field and more than 35 years of professional work experience overall. She specializes in bereavement counseling and the psychology of death and dying, serving individuals and families navigating grief and emotional transition. Kaylen is currently a PhD candidate in Depth Psychology, where she continues advancing her clinical expertise while completing her dissertation and maintaining an active therapeutic practice. She founded Kaylen E. Goodman, Inc., where her work is grounded in compassionate, humanistic care that honors grief as a deeply personal and uniquely human experience.
Kaylen began her hospice work in 2016 as a grief counselor while completing her master’s degree at Pacifica Graduate Institute. Throughout her career, she has worked with diverse populations across community mental health, eating disorders, and women’s health clinics before returning to hospice care three years ago when The Denver Hospice discovered her resume. In her current role, she provides free, barrier-free grief counseling services, seeing approximately 5 to 6 clients daily across the lifespan, from children as young as three years old to adults in their later years. Her clinical approach is deeply humanistic, emphasizing that grief does not follow a standardized treatment plan and instead requires individualized, relational care that meets clients exactly where they are in their healing journey.
Kaylen’s therapeutic philosophy is shaped not only by her academic training but also by her personal experiences with loss and her belief in the transformative potential of sadness when it is given space to be felt rather than quickly resolved. Her research and clinical practice are informed by integrative and depth psychotherapy traditions, exploring how language, narrative, and meaning-making support emotional healing. As a clinician, mentor, and mental health professional, Kaylen is committed to providing thoughtful, ethical, and compassionate care while contributing to the broader field of grief counseling through clinical service, scholarship, and community engagement.
• Licensed Therapist
• PhD Candidate in Depth Psychology
• Pacifica Graduate Institute - MA, Counseling Psychology
• UC Irvine - BA in Literary Journalism
• Pacifica Graduate Institute Alumni
• Colorado Counseling Association
• San Francisco Gay and Lesbian Foundation (AIDS research donations)
• Denver Hospice volunteer reading program
• AIDS Ride fundraising (San Francisco to Los Angeles)
What do you attribute your success to?
Perseverance, grit and willingness to take risks (for example relocating to Colorado), combined with lived experience of loss that shaped and sustained her vocational focus.
What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
Certainly in this industry, just to, if you so can, be patient with the beginning. If you're still hard on yourself, be hard on yourself, but know that if you just keep doing it, something will start, your skin will start to, your outsides will start to match your insides in a positive way. Eventually, in this field, beyond imposter syndrome, your insides and outsides will start to match and start to integrate, and you will feel worthy of this privilege of a profession.
What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
I would say people wanting a short-term, kind of linear fix to something that is so nebulous, and frustration for folks wanting and believing that therapy is like, I'd sometimes rather be a nurse and give someone some Tylenol so their head feels better. This is more of a craft and a collaborating and a riffing together. We're a nation of really just trying to fix and pull up our bootstraps, and get better, and just maximize your day. People don't want to go slow, so I would say that's probably hard, especially where grief, if you don't face it, that which you resist persists. It can just sit on your shoulder, it's okay, you don't have to brush it off so fast.
Locations
Kaylen Goodman, Inc.
Denver, CO 80230