Therapy is about the relationship that you and I create and grow over time. I bring a rich background of both personal and professional experience to join you on this season of your journey.
Supporting Women
Life is stressful; and women experience this in unique ways. Between juggling careers, families, and loved ones, we are often left with little time to focus on ourselves. Depression, anxiety, trauma, grief and loss, early childhood experiences, recurrent behaviors, relationships, careers, fertility, and body and life-cycle changes can result in difficulties with our self-esteem, relationships, mood, sexuality, spirituality, and health.
Women come with many similarities, as well as differences. We each bring our own unique set of circumstances to our relationships. These circumstances shape our identity and our daily experience of life. Have you found yourself:
- Feeling anxious or unsure of yourself?
- Experiencing sadness without fully understanding why?
- Assuming the role of over achiever or extreme caregiver which, in turn, causes you stress and feeling overwhelmed?
- Feeling guilt for taking care of yourself?
- Constantly feeling like you must make and keep others happy, even when it means putting your own needs aside?
- Struggling with perfectionism?
- Questioning your choices and path in life?
- Struggling with the transition to motherhood?
Do any of these resonate with you? Just because you have felt like you had to live a certain life role or have lost sight of yourself does not mean it is too late to make changes and reconnect with your yourself.
Jennifer is dedicated to focusing on the unique needs of women and strives to empower women by providing them with evidence backed interventions to reduce the pain in their life. Jennifer is committed to providing compassionate non judgmental support while working collaboratively to explore what is preventing you from living an authentic and joyful life. The most important thing Jennifer wants you to remember is you are not alone.
Maternal
Mental
Health
COMING SOON
Sex Addiction
and
Love Addiction
As a Certified Sex Addiction Therapist Candidate (CSAT Candidate), I am a recognized expert in the field of addiction therapy.
Often I am asked the question, what is a sex addiction? Healthy sexuality is an important part of our lives. When someone is struggling with a sex addiction, the trust, deep connection, and mutual pleasure of sexual intimacy is lost. At the root of the addiction is an impaired belief system that allows the addict to rationalize or deny their behavior.
Love Addiction is a psychological addiction, a result of unfulfilled childhood needs. Children whose needs remain unrecognized may adjust by learning to limit their expectations. This limitation process may take the form of core beliefs such as “My needs are not important”, “I am not loveable”, “Emotional connection will hurt”.
Such beliefs may result in an adult being obsessed with another person, wanting the other person to love the addict into loving themselves and wanting the other person to take care of the love addict in the same way. It is as though they, the addict, want the other person to “right the wrong from childhood”.
Please contact me to learn more about the tools and resources available to treat love addiction.
Relational Trauma, Betrayal Trauma, and Complex Trauma (CPTSD)
Relational trauma (also referred to as betrayal trauma) occurs within the context of a relationship where there is an expectation of safety. It is defined as a violation of trust and an attachment injury. This occurs when one partner, or individual, violates the expectation that the other will offer comfort, care, and safety in the relationship.
Relational trauma may have occurred as a child in your family of origin or as an adult in a committed relationship.
Relational and Betrayal trauma may occur when you uncover an unknown addiction or infidelity, your marriage. It can be the most debilitating moment in your life. These forms of betrayals are extremely traumatic, and mirror those of other traumatic events including shock, repression, denial, intense mood fluctuation, depression, anxiety, and lowered self-worth.
This can be painful and traumatic. In addition, the severe dishonesty, “gaslighting”, denial, minimization and manipulation that comes along with this discovery results in crisis and distress.
Relational trauma, betrayal trauma, and complex trauma may also include domestic violence and abuse. Abuse that occurs in the context of a relationship can include physical, sexual, emotional, psychological, cultural, spiritual, and financial abuse.
I believe that every person deserves physical, emotional, spiritual, and sexual safety: always. If you believe you are experiencing relational trauma and / or abuse, please contact me to learn about options available to you.
Narcissistic Abuse
Recovery
Did you grow up with a narcissistic parent or marry a narcissist? Are you currently struggling in a toxic relationship? Growing up were you the scapegoat and blamed for family problems? Do you feel that you are always walking on eggshells with a toxic parent or partner?
Most narcissists won’t go into therapy – after all, they don’t think there is anything wrong with them. Therefore, narcissistic abuse recovery is most often for the benefit of the abused partner, child, or loved.
If you’re in a relationship with a narcissist, it’s important to seek professional help. Narcissistic abuse recovery can support you and EMPOWER you to develop your own voice, restore your self-worth, and live an authentic joyful life.
Grief and
Loss
Grief, the painful feelings that often accompany a loss. Although we typically associate grief with the loss of a loved one, it can occur after many types of loss such as a divorce, life transition, career change, intentional or unintentional loss of a relationship, infertility, miscarriage, and loss of a hope, dream or vision.
According to Brene' Brown in Atlas of The Heart, not all grief looks the same.
The Columbia Center for Complicated Grief states that Complicated Grief occurs when something interferes with adaptation. When this happens, acute grief can persist for very long periods of time. A person with complicated grief feels intense emotional pain. Grief dominates their thoughts and feelings, with no respite in sight. Relationships with family and friends flounder. Life can seem purposeless, as if nothing matters without their loved one. While complicated grief and depression may look similar, they are not the same thing.
Ambiguous Grief is defined as unresolved grief that occurs when a relationship is disrupted or broken due to physical absence or psychological absence. This loss is often traumatic without resolution or closure. Some instances in which Ambiguous Grief may occur include a divorce, a military deployment, and when a loved one is struggling with dementia, addiction, or mental illness.
Another form of grief is Disenfranchised Grief. Yashel Bordere describes Disenfranchised Grief as “grief that is not openly acknowledged or publicly supported through mourning practices/rituals because the experience is not valued or acknowledged as a loss". Examples include divorce, miscarriage, infertility, trauma, and suicide.
Regardless of the type of grief, grief can leave you feeling lost and longing for what was. If you find yourself unsure of how to move forward and in need of support following a loss, therapy may be helpful for you.
Let's Talk
Take your first step today. Let's find a time where we can meet and talk about what's on your mind.
