Kevin McKenzie, Psy.D.

I'm a licensed psychologist in Arizona, and McKenzie Psychology is my private practice. I've always been drawn to questions that don't have obvious answers — to the careful, methodical work of figuring out what's actually going on. I find the diagnostic question more interesting than most people do. I work at a deliberate pace and I'm more interested in understanding what's going on than in arriving at a label quickly — both of those things tend to show up in the work. And when it goes well, it's also something more: a chance for someone to finally feel seen and understood in a way they haven't before.

I came to assessment through clinical work, not the other way around. Most of my professional life has been spent doing direct service with people dealing with serious mental illness, trauma, and complex presentations — the kind of work that requires careful thinking about what's actually going on with a person. Assessment is an extension of that same orientation: a serious attempt to understand someone, with a report that reflects that effort.

My goal in every evaluation is to write in a way that explains rather than catalogs. Test data, clinical observation, and developmental history are integrated into a formulation — a coherent account of how a person's functioning makes sense given who they are and where they've been — written to be understood by the person receiving it, shared with their providers, and actually used.

Training & Background

I completed my doctoral training in clinical psychology at Antioch University New England and my APA-accredited internship through the Southern Arizona Psychology Internship Center (SAPIC), which gave me strong grounding in assessment across a range of presenting concerns and populations. My postdoctoral fellowship was at La Frontera Center in Tucson.

My assessment training includes supervised ADOS-2 administration and specialized training in ADHD, autism, psychoeducational, psychodiagnostic, and IDD/DDD evaluation.

Clinical Orientation

My therapeutic work is grounded in relational and depth-oriented frameworks, with cognitive and skills-based approaches where they fit naturally. In practice, this means close attention to pattern — how people relate, what they avoid, where they hesitate and why. I work at a pace that allows those patterns to become visible rather than just described, and I try to be honest about what change actually requires. Avoidance is usually protective rather than resistant. Change tends to require something real — looking at what we'd rather not, confronting what we've avoided, and trying what hasn't been tried. That's not something you navigate alone — it's something we work through together. I work best with people who are curious about what's going on beneath the surface and willing to do the slower, more deliberate kind of work that genuine understanding takes.

I am a member of the National Register of Health Service Psychologists, the American Psychological Association, and the Southern Arizona Psychological Association.