About Me

My name is Loren Gaillardetz. Being a therapist is an incredible privilege, and I am always honored when people choose me to accompany them on this wonderful, hard, scary, and exhilarating journey of exploration and growth. In the time I’ve been practicing, I have learned so much from my work and from my clients. My top lessons from my time as a therapist are as follows:

Human beings are incredibly resilient. Trauma walks through my office on a daily basis. I’ve heard my share of horrific stories and been witness to ways in which the past can infuse the present with darkness, fear, anger, and hurt. At the same time, I’ve witnessed time and time again the triumphant beauty of someone rising above the worst that has happened to them. I have seen astounding journeys of growth. I have been present for inspiring moments of perseverance, humor, and tearful joy, and I have seen first-hand the ever-present glimmer of something indestructible in the human spirit.
We become who we are in and through relationship. Back in my college days, I remember one of my favorite professors stressing to us that human beings are an ultrasocial species. We evolved to need each other in very real ways. As I’ve learned more about the human mind and spirit, I’ve come to realize that we gain our sense of self, others, and the world around us through relationships. Both the best and worst of what it means to be human play themselves out in the arena of relationship. Think about your deepest wounds–where do they come from? The answer virtually always involves relationship of some kind. At the same time, it is through relationship that we heal and grow.
In a nurturing environment, people will naturally grow into the best versions of themselves.

I carry these lessons with me into every moment with each of my clients.

My job as a therapist is to provide you with that kind of nurturing, open, safe space of relationship so that what is indestructible in you can shine forth, free of the accumulated fears, shame, and conditions for acceptance we can’t help but pick up as we move through life.

My goal as a therapist is to provide the individualized nurturing environment you need to facilitate insight into your own unique life themes and patterns and to become the fullest version of yourself that you can be. As we collaborate together to explore your inner world, we can grow your capacity for intimacy with others and with your innermost self.

I graduated summa cum laude with degrees in Psychology and French and went on to receive my Master’s in Clinical Mental Health Counseling from the University of Missouri – St. Louis, which consistently ranks as one of the top counselor education programs in the nation. I completed my clinical internship through the St. Louis Psychoanalytic Institute’s Bilingual Psychodynamic Psychotherapy Practicum. In 2023 I completed a two-year postgraduate training program in Child, Adolescent, and Adult Advanced Psychodynamic Psychotherapy at the St. Louis Psychoanalytic Institute.

I have focused training in psychodynamic psychotherapy, women’s empowerment, social class and poverty concerns, counseling sexual and gender minorities, and neuroscience.