Dr. Alexandra Kenna received her bachelor’s degree from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service in 1996. She received her MA in Counseling Psychology from Boston College’s Lynch School of Counseling Psychology in 2001.
From 2001-2003, she worked as a Career Counselor, providing career counseling and vocational exploration for individuals laid off after 9/11 in downtown Boston.She then returned to Boston College for her doctorate and received her PhD from Boston College’s Doctoral Program in Counseling Psychology in 2009. This included a one-year clinical internship through the Consortium for Clinical Psychology at the VA Boston Healthcare System, with major rotations in General Mental Health (including the Mood and Anxiety disorders, Severe Mental Illness, and PTSD clinics) and Neuropsychology. Additional clinical placements during her doctoral studies included Emerson College’s Counseling Center, Boston Medical Center, the Babcock Day Treatment Center, and Chelmsford Elementary School.
Following graduation, Dr. Kenna completed a two-year postdoctoral fellowship through the Transitional Research Center for Traumatic Brain Injury and Stress Disorders (TRACTS) located at the VA Boston Healthcare providing critical services to returning Veterans from the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Upon completion of her fellowship, Dr. Kenna was offered a permanent position as a Clinical Research Psychologist with TRACTS, where she currently works part-time and continues to provide intensive psychiatric assessments of research participants, individual and group treatments, and serves as the TRACTS Associate Director of Educational Outreach and Training. Dr. Kenna is licensed in the state of Massachusetts and is a Certified Provider of Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT) for trauma and PTSD.
Dr. Kenna believes in providing research and evidence-based treatments that are practical, effective, and manageable in the midst of busy lives while also being tailored to fit each individual client. Her professional style in therapy is strengths-based, empowering, flexible and collaborative.
Testimonials from recent clients
“Dr. Kenna transformed my life. After the death of my daughter, I was experiencing PTSD symptoms that led me to seek treatment. I knew that my grief would last a lifetime but I didn’t realize until I worked with her that some of the other aspects of my pain and suffering didn’t have to. I could immediately tell she was incredibly knowledgeable about structured, research-based ways to support me through this process and I was consistently impressed with how she helped me actively address my problematic thinking so that I could achieve a healthier mental, emotional, and physical state. After 3 months working with Dr. Kenna, my husband pointed out that it was the single most influential thing that I did to shift my hopelessness, fear, desperation, and despair. I believe that Dr. Kenna saved my life and helped me create a new path forward for myself; she paved the way so I could see color again.”
“I’m forever grateful to Dr. Kenna for helping me create and communicate healthy boundaries in my personal and professional life. I didn’t realize how often I was ignoring my needs, and Alex gave me the tools to better ask for what I want and manage my own internal expectations.”
Alexandra C. Kenna, PhD 