Welcome to A Balanced Point of View

To begin, I thought what better way to introduce myself than to take a moment and share with you the entire reason I chose to become a psychotherapist in the first place.

You see, I never really understood how to be in the world.  From a young age, I constantly felt confused and uncertain, I was shy and scared most of the time. As I got older, I was accomplished and successful on the outside, but the truth is, I was suffering and struggling internally and slowly losing my desire to exist in the world.  As a young executive, I found myself attempting to navigate the corporate world and I needed help to figure out how.  Fortunately, help came in the form of an LCSW and she ultimately helped me learn to save my life. She taught me to trust, feel and eventually heal from all that made me feel small.  Rather than continuing to pursue my interest in medicine, law or administration, I ultimately pivoted to explore the thing I was born to do; I became a social worker myself and I love it.  If I were being completely honest, from the day I was born, people have been telling me their secrets and trusting me with their pain throughout my entire life. 

My professional bio is below for those who want to know a more about my experience and qualifications. 

I was born in Caribou, Maine and was raised in Northern California from the age of 3. Throughout my life, I have traveled back and forth between Northern California and Southern Arizona.  In college, I settled on an undergraduate degree of anthropology and criminal justice at the University of Arizona, where I simultaneously worked in the cardiology department at the (then) University Medical Center in Tucson. After receiving my Bachelor of Science degree, I worked in the biomedical device industry helping to market and train cardiac surgical teams on the CardioWest Total Artificial Heart.  I operated in this capacity for several years before returning to academia to further my education.  I ultimately received my Masters in Social Work from Arizona State University in 2012. 

I have worked in various behavioral health settings within the public and private sectors for the past 13 years.  These included outpatient, intensive outpatient, residential and in-patient care. In 2018, I helped develop, facilitate and performed the role of Program Manager for the Licensed Professionals Program at Sierra Tucson for over three years. In 2021, I returned to the Bay Area as the Director of Clinical Services for Bayside Marin. Ultimately, I left this role and returned to direct practice as a Primary Therapist at Alta Mira Recovery in Sausalito, CA in 2022. Throughout this time, I have predominantly enjoyed supporting individuals and their families navigate early sobriety and emotional recovery. In particular, I have had the privilege to support countless individuals and licensed professionals learn to navigate their mental health needs, which is both near and dear to my heart.  Assisting individuals to provide optimal care to their patients, or clients, in their respective practices, has been both a rich and rewarding experience that I continue to enhance in my private practice. 

Prior to returning to the Sonoran desert in 2018, I spent 6 years in San Francisco, CA where I worked as an intensive community social worker with Health Right 360, the Institute on Aging, and Progress Foundation, assisting individuals with severe co-morbidity factors transition from a skilled nursing facility into the community with wrap around supports. This experience demonstrated to me that the suffering which transcends humanity, not only broke my personal paradigm and what I knew about people, but it also continues to influence the way I engage in my clinical practice today.  My focus and passion to help those suffering from addiction and co-occurring issues is best supported by my trauma informed approach.  Over the years, I have utilized a multitude of treatment modalities to help guide individuals by increasing their awareness, allowing for acceptance, and then fostering the ability to take action. With love and compassion, my primary therapeutic practice focuses on the use of internal family systems, developmental model of healing, psychodrama and experiential approaches to understand how and why one behaves and feels the way they do.  

I use humor and humility as a means of normalizing experiences to help people shift from “being a human doing to a human being.” I believe in the power of narrative story and thus when appropriate, I will share both my personal and professional experiences to help you foster the change and growth you desire in your life.  We will connect and collaborate together in our humanity throughout the entire therapeutic process. 

When I am not operating in a professional capacity, I spend my free time in Marin County practicing my culinary skills, gardening, hiking, biking and raising my small human. 

With gratitude, Jenny