About Jen Joseph

First and foremost, my priority is to understand you— what your priorities are for the therapy and what you think, feel and want. I aim to create a compassionate, non-judgmental space for you to be real and authentic with me (and your partner, if doing couples therapy). I intend to always honor your autonomy and to never impose an agenda onto you. I will offer my reflections and suggestions, but you are always welcome to disagree, opt out or to let me know if something I say doesn’t land for you. I treat therapy as an ongoing collaborative dialogue where we are all free to speak our minds. I aim to meet people where they’re at and find what what works for that unique client instead of offering a one-size-fits-all approach.

I will challenge you to grow— according to your goals for therapy. While I always want you to feel comfortable sharing yourself with me and strive to create a warm, open, non-judgmental environment for you to do so, I’m not a therapist who focuses on ‘safety’ at the expense of growth. The reality is that therapy is a place to take risks, to do things that might feel a bit edgy or uncomfortable, to practice emotionally intimate ways of relating rather than unconscious distancing behaviors that keeps you stuck— distancing from your own feelings and/or from others.

With your permission, I will point out if I see you saying or doing something that I think is getting in the way of what you say you want to achieve in therapy. Not to chastise or criticize you— but to shed light on what you might not be seeing that’s getting in the way of the life and relationships you say you want.

I’m an experiential therapist. I seek to facilitate real, felt change— not just cognitive insight. I support individuals and couples in having new experiences with themselves, with each other and with me that are aligned with the goals they say they want. In couples therapy, that includes couples facing and interacting directly with each other. In individual therapy, that can look like using our relationship as a “laboratory” to learn about yourself.

I work in the here-and-now. While your past is likely relevant to your current-day struggles, the therapy is focused on what’s happening in the present moment— which may very well be informed by past hurts, ruptures, traumas etc. We can’t change the past, but we can change how you’re relating to your partner, life, etc. in the now. Rather than therapy being a place for endless storytelling, I find it most beneficial to focus on your feelings, reactions and desires in the present moment— knowing that those present moment reactions may have roots in the past.

I tell the truth compassionately about what I see that’s getting in your way. I’m sensitive to my client’s autonomy and seek to never impose a personal agenda on anyone. At the same time, I’m not neutral in that I’m rooting for your growth and for the courageous and health-seeking parts of you to come to the fore. I will share my reflections and opinions with you about what I think is getting in your way. I will always respect what you think is best for you, and I won’t shy away from pointing out what I see is hurting you— this includes for couples when one or both partners are creating barriers to emotional intimacy.

With couples, that may look like one of you being in the ‘hot seat’ for period of time. Not to criticize or embarrass you, but to help you see what’s hindering you in your relationship. Sessions might not feel ‘balanced’ taken session by session, but it’s inevitable that there will be a focus on each partner’s logjams to emotional intimacy at various points in the overall therapy. And that I will point out what I see as each partner’s contributions to the negative relationship dynamics.

I’m specific and focused. I will help you get very specific about the problems you’re looking for help with and what you want to achieve. Every session will be focused on what you want for yourself. It’s fine if that changes session to session, but I will support you in being intentional in what we focus on in every session. Unlike some other therapists and modalities, I’m less of an open-ended therapy type therapist and more of the mindset that you’re here to achieve specific goals and my job is to support you in doing so as efficiently and effectively as possible.

Modalities I have advanced training in include The Psychobiological Approach to Couple Therapy (PACT), Intensive Short Term Dynamic Psychotherapy (ISTDP), Dynamic Emotion Focused Therapy (DEFT), The Developmental Model, Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy (EFT), Transformative Couples Therapy (TCT), Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy (AEDP) and Discernment Counseling. For more information about the trainings I’ve done, scroll to the bottom of the page.