About
Hi, I’m Jen.
I can’t walk by a corgi without smiling. I love laughing loudly and am not ashamed to say I curse freely. I’ve been in private practice for 20 years. My heart and passion is for the one-on-one work of deep, life-changing psychotherapy.
How I Help People
I provide online therapy to professionals throughout Oregon and Washington. I help people who are struggling with stress and anxiety, grief and loss, and finding personal success. Together we create more ease in your life and career, improve your relationships, and feel more joy!
My Approach to Therapy
I’m not the “mmm hmmm” quiet-type therapist. I am direct, curious, and genuine. I don’t shy away from expressive communication and humor. My approach to therapy is transpersonal. Sounds a bit new-age, doesn’t it? But I think of it as holistic. We’re more than just the sum of our parts. When we meet, there’s you as the client, me as the therapist, the us of us, and together we create the space in between. The relationship is where the healing happens. I show up wholly and authentically as myself so we can begin to build a strong emotional connection right from the start.
I bring an open, curious, and adventurous spirit to our work. Embracing ambiguous assignments and unknown challenges, I help people become less uncomfortable with the unknown and more comfortable in their own skin. My sincerity and empathy create a warm and familiar place where you can feel safe and be yourself in times of chaos and stress. We’ll use mindfulness in our sessions to explore your lived experiences, gain personal insight, and work towards greater self-understanding. With my extensive experience and keen intuition, I grasp the thoughts and emotions of others. By being genuine and supportive in our sessions, I encourage and empower you to embark on a meaningful, intentional, and life-changing transformation.
About Therapy
While therapy can often feel uncomfortable, your sense of safeness in session is my priority. I am genuinely committed to your healing and provide familiarity, stability, and dependability so you can feel safe enough to delve into the root causes of your distress. We will explore skills for tolerating the distress and find ways to be with it while also working to reduce the discomfort in practical and sustainable ways.
Therapy is a big commitment. It's a commitment you make of your time and your dollars. It's a commitment you make to yourself, for yourself. And those around you will likely benefit, as well. Generally, sessions are weekly. On occasion other arrangements can be made.
It's not possible to say how many therapy hours would be required for a particular concern because nothing happens in a vacuum and other concerns may arise. Some issues can be worked through in several sessions. Alternatively, it's not uncommon for people to work with me for 1 to 2 years or more, sometimes then returning months or years later for a few sessions as a refresher. You can expect to spend anywhere from 6 months to a couple of years in weekly therapy to make deep, characterological changes. These are not changes that occur out of willpower and determination, but out of a very real change deep inside of you. These are the changes that allow you to experience yourself as different, more accessible, more fully alive, and with less effort.
Jen's Formal and Life Training
I have a bachelors in English so naturally my first career was in forestry. Yep, I hiked through the woods and hugged trees for a living, and I loved it. When my forestry job came to an end, I didn’t know what I would do next, but I knew I wanted to work with people. I wanted my work to be meaningful and helpful.
The day after I was laid off, I was in my sitting meditation and it came to me: I will be a therapist. I dashed off to the library and did a little research and within a week I applied to grad school. I now have a MA in counseling psychology with a focus in transpersonal counseling. My theoretical stance is existential-humanistic in nature. As a devout lifelong learner, I invest a lot of time continuing my education, reading books, and talking about all things life: change, challenge, gratitude, meaning, hope, courage, death, joy, suffering — in session, sure, but also in my personal relationships. It’s hugely important to me that I show up in session as authentically me, that I do my own work, and that I, too, am able to sit with struggle and ask the hard questions.
PNW Compassion, LLC
Each corporation needs a name and I chose PNW Compassion, LLC for mine. PNW because I love the Pacific Northwest where I’ve nearly always lived. And compassion because compassion is what it’s all about. I aim to be sensitive to suffering as it’s happening, in myself and others, and do what I can to alleviate that suffering and mitigating its return.
Compassion is integral to my meditation practice. Compassion is my motivation as a therapist. It’s my motivation as a human. It is the heart of my counseling. Compassion is also central to how I share mindfulness with the world through guided meditations, writing, workshops, and coaching. I love and respect compassion so very much that I earned a postgraduate certificate in Compassion-Focused Therapy from the University of Derby in the UK (2020).
SERVICES
Stress & Anxiety
Grief & Loss
Women Executives
