“The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are.”

- Joseph Campbell

My Focus Is You

Your strengths, your challenges, and your goals. Together, we will work to help you move away from negative patterns that limit your growth and help you move towards greater self-compassion.

I will help you to navigate challenges and become the best version of yourself.

While each story is unique, I frequently work with people who are:

  • Grappling with anxiety, grief, or complicated relationships.

  • Professionals, academics, and entrepreneurs interested in honing their communication and interpersonal skills.

  • Working to define their personal or professional sense of self.

  • Eager to change how they are feeling.

  • Wanting to improve their experience of parenting or partnering.

  • Aiming to harness their strengths and grow their capacity for self-compassion in personal development.

  • Overwhelmed by their emotions (anxiety, anger, grief), or unable to feel their emotions fully (sadness, safety, joy).

  • Experiencing a major life transition and in need of support to navigate it.

If you are struggling with a transition,

I will help you find your way to

back to yourself. 

You feel stuck and are not sure how you are going to get through a transition such as the loss of a loved one to death or the end of a relationship, an alarming diagnosis, or a career disruption. In addition to individual challenges, we are all reckoning with the collective trauma in global health, national and local politics, and environmental concerns. Even changes that would otherwise be joyful—becoming a parent, getting married, starting a new job, building new friendships—can feel stressful.

I will support you in finding your focus and your joy amidst the stress and complications of life.

 

How I Work

As your collaborator, I will help you define your goals and support you as you work towards them. My job is to create a place where you can express your full range of emotions in every session. While tears in therapy may be expected, do not discount the healing power of laughter.

 
 

  • A framework that offers non-judgmental counseling to help disrupt negative patterns, using your strengths and self-knowledge to guide treatment. The self-compassion fostered in IFS work helps to reduce the intensity and frequency of uncomfortable or unwanted emotional reactions. Sometimes I use IFS as a lens to help build self-compassion within my clients, sometimes I teach it as a tool for clients to better manage their own emotions as they come up.

  • An approach that considers your personal and family history, relationships, and current context —a focus on you as a whole person as opposed to simply the problem or issue that brought you to therapy. I find that to truly understand my clients I need to understand how their past relationships and experiences may be impacting their present.

  • The perspective that every person in born with the desire and need for close emotional bonds. I use principles of this approach to support you through anxiety, grief, relationships challenges, improving communication, and life transitions in parenting, partnering, work, family, personal identity and growth. For some, therapy is one of their first experiences of a secure relationship and can be a model for what it feels like to get their emotional needs met.

  • Many of the people I work with are working through parenting challenges. Our work together will provide a space to process these challenges and come up with actionable techniques and skills to help improve your relationship with your child, your coparent, and allow you to give yourself some grace.

  • Whether in your personal or your professional life, the ability to listen and be heard is critical to improving and maintaining relationships. In our work together we will explore your challenges and leverage your strengths to support better communication, and in turn, better relationships.

 
 

Let’s Get Started

Email me, jenny@jwktherapy.com, to schedule a 10-15 min phone call to discuss your goals and answer your questions.

Frequently Asked Questions

  • How often do you accept new patients? When I have a full caseload I keep a short waitlist and typically have an opening every two to three months.

  • What services do you provide? I work with individual adults in a weekly outpatient setting, mostly virtual. I also provide Professional Consultation for independently licensed therapists using the Internal Family Systems framework.

  • Do you meet in person? I offer hybrid services with most sessions via video call on a HIPAA secure platform and some availability in person in Arlington, MA.

  • Do you take insurance? I am not presently part of any insurance networks, however you may be able to use your insurer’s coverage for “out of network” services to get reimbursement for part of the cost of session.

About Me

I live with my husband, child, and dog, Earnest, in Arlington, MA and own two small businesses. In the other half of my professional life I publish a nautical almanac for boaters along the East Coast of the U.S. When I’m not working, I spend as much time as I can on or near the ocean.

I earned a BA in Sociology and Spanish from University of Massachusetts and an MSW from Smith College School for Social Work. I am trained in IFS and EMDR.