Dr. Kai Gunty

Dr. Kai is an LMFT and LPCC and AAMFT Supervisor. He is the owner of Dandelion Spirit, a neurodevelopmental and mental health clinic with locations in New Hope and Eagan that includes neurodevelopmental specialists, mental health, occupational therapy (OT), and speech therapy (SLP) - Dandelion Spirit focuses on working with people who have experienced trauma, neurodiverse people, and LGBTQ+ people, with a particular focus on children, youth, and their families.

Dr. Kai has worked with children and families for well over two decades. He partners with children and families to work on practical solutions to make their everyday lives better while also creating space for expression; processing; creation, development, consolidation, and communication of identity; and healing.

He does not believe in treating neurodiversity (such as autism). He works with children and families to better understand how their brains work and what they need, to identify modifications to environments (e.g., at home and at school) that are more supportive of that, to build the skills they want to have to be able to navigate their daily lives, and to process and heal the trauma of living a daily life in a world that wasn't built for them.

Dr. Kai brings a nervous-system-centric approach to everything he does, believing deeply in regulation through play, connection, and engagement in special interests. He is trained (in both foundations and implementation) in Sensorimotor Arousal Regulation Treatment (SMART), the Safe and Sound Protocol, Integrated Listening System (aka the Focus System), and Anchored Relational Therapy / Adaptive Internal Relations Network (AIR Network).

Dr. Kai also has specialized experience and skill in assessing neurodiverse children, with particular expertise in assessing children birth through age 5. He utilizes an assessment protocol that centers building a positive experience between child and therapeutic spaces and keeping child autonomy and child consent intact.

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 Supervisor Candidate

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