Dr. Ellice Kang, PhD
PhD in Counseling Psychology with deep multicultural and Korean American clinical training
Dr. Ellice Kang is a licensed psychologist at Gryzbek Therapy in Naperville, Illinois. She works with adults and adolescents across anxiety, depression, trauma, identity development, postpartum mental health, and women’s issues — with specific training in culturally-responsive care for Korean American and other bicultural clients.
- PhD in Counseling Psychology, Purdue University (2024) — Illinois-licensed psychologist (#071.022583)
- Multicultural counseling · Korean American clinical experience
- In-network with BCBS PPO, Aetna PPO, UHC PPO, Medicare
Dr. Kang is accepting new clients. Matched within 1 business day — in-person on N Mill Street or via Illinois telehealth.
Verified credentials & clinical record
What Dr. Kang treats
Ellice carries an unusually broad specialty roster — the result of integrative doctoral training and a deliberate focus on the intersections between mood, identity, and cultural context. She is the clinician Joe routes to when a presenting concern has a multicultural, identity, or perinatal layer underneath the mood or anxiety surface.
An integrative framework, encapsulated by systems theory
Ellice pulls from three evidence-based modalities — structured cognitive work, values-based behavioral work, and interpersonal/attachment work — held inside a systems-theory framework that locates the person within family, culture, and life-stage context.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
(CBT)
Structured work on the thought-feeling-behavior loop — identifying patterns that fuel anxiety or depression, testing them against evidence, and building different responses. The structured backbone of most of Ellice’s anxiety and depression work.
Acceptance & Commitment Therapy
(ACT)
Values-based work that lets clients re-engage with what matters — without waiting for the anxiety, grief, or self-criticism to disappear first. Especially useful in identity work and the chronic worry patterns that don’t respond to pure cognitive restructuring.
Interpersonal & Attachment-Based Work
(IPT · Attachment Theory)
Interpersonal Therapy and attachment-based work locate symptoms in the relational and family-system context that produced them — particularly relevant for intergenerational and identity-driven presentations where the family system is part of the picture.
CPT & Behavioral Activation
(Cognitive Processing Therapy · BA)
CPT is the evidence-based trauma protocol Ellice uses as an EMDR alternative — structured, manualized, and well-tolerated. Behavioral Activation anchors the depression work, restoring engagement with the activities that produce relief and meaning.
Who Dr. Kang works with
In-network coverage and how sessions run
In-network insurance
Dr. Kang is paneled in-network with BCBS PPO, Aetna PPO, United Healthcare PPO, and Medicare. For out-of-network plans, the practice bills your insurer on your behalf — you don’t submit superbills yourself.
Telehealth scope
Ellice offers in-person sessions at the Naperville office on N Mill Street and secure Illinois telehealth across DuPage County, Chicagoland, and statewide Illinois. Telehealth is available for clients physically located in Illinois at the time of session.
Session length
Individual sessions run 55 minutes in-person and 60 minutes via telehealth. Most clients meet weekly, especially in the first 2 to 3 months. A typical treatment frame runs 6 to 9 months of consistent work.
Hours
Practice hours are Monday through Thursday, 9 AM to 7 PM, and Friday 9 AM to 5 PM. Saturday is by appointment only. Dr. Kang’s specific availability is confirmed during intake matching.
How Ellice came to this work
Dr. Kang is a second-generation Korean American, born and raised in Southern California. Her training and her own bicultural experience converge in the work — particularly with clients navigating the territory between two cultural systems, family-of-origin expectations, and the quiet pressure of being the first generation expected to translate emotional life into a vocabulary the previous generation didn’t have.
“My ultimate goal is to help foster positive change in the different areas of your life.” — Dr. Ellice Kang
Her doctoral training at Purdue University — a PhD in Counseling Psychology completed in 2024 with the dissertation Highlighting the Need for Culture-Specific Preventative Interventions — built an integrative framework: Interpersonal Therapy (IPT), Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), held together by systems theory. The structured cognitive work gives clients tools to interrupt anxious or depressive loops. The values-based ACT work gives them somewhere to spend their energy instead of fighting the symptom. The interpersonal layer locates the symptom in the relational and family system that produced it — rather than treating the symptom as a personal defect.
Dr. Kang’s clinical work centers on depression, anxiety, and identity development — including bicultural identity, racial identity, gender identity, and generational-status dynamics. She also works extensively with life transitions, grief and loss, interpersonal functioning, and intergenerational trauma. Her multicultural training shapes the entire frame of the work, not just a sub-specialty: she pays close attention to how culture, immigration history, and family-system expectations shape the way symptoms present and the way clients describe what’s wrong.
Alongside the clinical work, Dr. Kang has contributed to peer-reviewed counseling-psychology research on therapeutic process, working-alliance dynamics, cross-cultural therapy outcomes, and clinician cultural responsiveness. Published work includes Development and Initial Validation of the Therapist Hope for Clients Scale, Clients’ resilience and distress in psychotherapy, Clients’ perceptions of the working alliance as a predictor of increases in positive affect, A choir or cacophony?, Therapists’ cultural comfort and clients’ distress, and Therapist and counseling center effects on international students’ counseling outcome. Her earlier training as a postdoctoral fellow under Dr. Joseph Gryzbek — following CSUF’s California Pre-Doctoral Scholar programme (2016) and an MEd completed during her doctoral years — gave her a direct line into the practice’s integrative clinical model before she joined the staff.
A particular emphasis of her practice is reducing the stigma that often surrounds mental health in cultural communities where therapy is still framed as a sign of weakness or family failure. For many Korean American and bicultural clients, the act of starting therapy is itself a culturally weighted decision — one that benefits from a clinician who understands the weight without needing it explained.
At Gryzbek Therapy, Dr. Kang sees adults and adolescents across anxiety, depression, trauma, postpartum mental health, women’s issues, LGBTQ+ identity work, grief, and stress — with the multicultural and identity layer running underneath whichever presenting concern brings a client in. She is currently accepting new clients for both in-person sessions in Naperville and Illinois telehealth.
Verify Dr. Kang’s credentials
Ready to begin?
Dr. Kang is accepting new clients for in-person sessions in Naperville and Illinois telehealth. The first step is the hardest — we’ll meet you there. From first call to matched session is typically 1 business day, with no waitlist and no triage queue.
Prefer the phone? Call (630) 474-1006 · In-network: BCBS PPO, Aetna PPO, UHC PPO, Medicare