ABOUT
Deeper psychiatric care for people seeking clarity, precision, and lasting change.
Advanced Clinical Insight. Powerful priorities. Real-life transformation.
Meet Dr. McKinney:
Mental health work found Dr. McKinney, not the other way around. Raised in an extended family affected by inadequately treated mental health conditions, she developed deep compassion for emotional distress, depression, and the impact mental illness can have on individuals and families.
Over time, she has come to understand emotional difficulty as part of a person’s growth journey — a space where people can become more resilient, gain self-awareness, better understand the external pressures and internal vulnerabilities that shape their lives, and discover new opportunities for healing. We become better, more compassionate human beings by navigating our own trials.
Dr. McKinney is a South Carolina native who split her childhood between Columbia and the Lowcountry. She is energized by learning, mountains, the color of the Caribbean Sea, family time, and spiritual development. After graduating from high school, Dr. McKinney traveled to the Pacific Northwest to hike the North Cascades and experience the freedom of youth and adventure. She later studied navigation and sailing in Florida before beginning her studies at the University of South Carolina.
Dr. McKinney completed her nursing education through the master’s level and later earned a PhD from the Arnold School of Public Health, with a focus on quality and health outcomes. She was board certified as both an adult psychiatric nurse practitioner and an adult primary care practitioner. At Duke University, she completed a two-year research postdoctoral fellowship in health outcomes and clinical practice patterns. She was later recruited to reopen the Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner program at the University of South Carolina, where she served as director and faculty member until 2019.
She now focuses exclusively on physical health and mental hygiene as they influence treatment-resistant depression outcomes. She uses an integrative lens to provide more holistic care for clients. For example, as a trained yoga teacher, she works one-on-one with select clients to help calm the nervous system through simple techniques, gentle postures, and breathing strategies. These interventions are research-informed and are shown to improve anxiety and mood.
Dr. McKinney’s professional and personal history fuels her dedication to advanced clinical insights and targeted, personalized treatment plans. With twenty years as a clinical provider and seven years of focused work in treatment-resistant depression, she recognizes the layered biological, psychological, and life-pattern factors often missed in standard care. McKinney Behavioral Health was founded to serve clients with more nuanced depression histories, symptoms, and those who require a curated treatment approach.
As a client, you will experience a whole-person assessment that begins with telling your story, then exploring your biological profile through the hard science of laboratory and pharmaco-genetic studies. These findings are interpreted within the context of your unique psychological and social environment, nervous system condition, immune function, and metabolic health. This information will inform your individualized Roadmap to healing.
Your Roadmap summarizes our findings and offers relevant, individualized targets for treatment. You will then have options to enter several different care pathways. Our three levels of care and optional Enhancement services were developed from decades of clinical experience observing what is most useful to clients — and what often helps them move forward. This stepped model allows clients to choose the level of support that best fits their goals, readiness, and comfort.
How can we help you?
Apply for a free 15 minute consultation call so we can determine whether this approach is aligned with your needs and goals.