Psychotherapist. Advocate. Ally.

Who do you choose for the change work YOU want to do?

Elizabeth Keeney has been a social worker since 2009 and a practicing psychotherapist since 2019. Graduating from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with a Bachelors degree in Social Welfare, she moved to Austin, Texas and spent three years providing dropout prevention support to students and families living in public housing. Hoping to deepen her understanding of systems as well as individuals, she moved to NYC in 2006 to pursue a dual degree MSW/MPA at Columbia University. While completing her degrees, Keeney worked in family defense at The Bronx Defenders, advocated for NYC students with the National Economic and Social Rights Initiative’s Right to Education program and immersed herself in harm reduction philosophy and technical assistance at the Open Society’s International Harm Reduction Development Program.

Keeney returned to The Bronx Defenders as a social worker in 2009, became a supervisor in criminal defense, and eventually the Managing Director of Social Work from 2014-2016. Keeney left BxD in 2016 to pursue a more focused clinical experience at the Sex Workers Project of the Urban Justice Center where she provided therapy and case management to sex workers and survivors of trafficking. Throughout her career in non-profit direct services Keeney felt the inherent tensions in providing trauma-informed zealous advocacy, building intentional and safe therapeutic relationships and maintaining sense of self. This deeply personal knowledge led her to create the first ever wellness program in a public defender office.

In early 2020, Keeney became the first Employee Wellness Program Manager at Brooklyn Defender Services where she provided confidential individual supportive counseling to hundreds of employees, facilitated recurring process groups for staff and supervisors across roles and practices, grief processing and training on wellness-related topics including trauma-informed advocacy to staff and supervisors. In 2023, Keeney completed a four-year liberation-oriented psychodynamic clinical training program. Since 2024, Keeney has worked independently as a psychotherapist and organizational wellness consultant specializing in social justice and legal services providers.