Jen Davis, MA, LMFTA

Approach to the Therapy Process

I view therapy as a collaborative process that seeks to honor the strengths, needs, and inherent expertise each person holds over their own life. Every person, relationship, and family is entirely unique and comes to therapy for widely different reasons, from incredibly diverse backgrounds, and with their own particular set of experiences, needs, goals, and perspectives. I relish working with adults, couples, teens, pre-teens, families, and relationships. Feel free to reach out if you’d like to schedule a free consultation to explore working with me.

As a therapist, I strive to understand your unique situation and to honor your lived experiences to better walk beside you on your journey toward growth. My approach is rooted in somatic and experiential psychotherapy principles, which means I often focus on bridging the gap between traditional talk therapy and the felt body-based knowing that each human carries. Increasing opportunities for befriending one’s own nervous system responses to trauma, oppression, conflict, and the myriad of other everyday challenges allows for new ways of being in the world and for more deeply connected relationships.

Additionally, I utilize a therapeutic framework* developed for the purpose of discovering, attaining insight into, forming new relationships with, and overcoming internalized oppression related to the complex array of intersecting identities and lived experiences. This framework guides my application of the various therapeutic modalities that I integrate into the treatment of relationships, couples, families, and individuals.

I primarily use the following theoretical orientations in my approach to therapy: Internal Family Systems (IFS “parts” work), Somatic Psychotherapy, Gottman Method Couples Therapy, and Structural Family Therapy, all through the lens of the *Treating Internalized Oppression framework. I specialize in working with folks who are neurodivergent, I provide LGBTQIA+ affirming therapy, and I ally with BIPOC and other marginalized people through the therapy process.

Couples, Families, and Relationship Therapy

I entered the field of Couple and Family Therapy due to a passion for learning about what makes relationships thrive and what drives them to the brink. The struggle for balance around closeness, distance, boundaries, alignment, values, conflict, life transitions, ruptures, and healing within relationships are common threads that weave throughout the quilt of human experience. I love diving into the deep end with couples, romantic partners, parents, and families (with or without human children) to discover new ways of seeing and responding to novel problems and stuck patterns. I relish the journey of co-discovering new possibilities.

I welcome you to reach out to me to see if I would be a good fit for collaboratively working with you and your loved ones on improving your relationships. With couples, I primarily use Gottman Method Couples Therapy, an integrative, research-based approach to improving and healing romantic partnerships. When working with Families, I draw from family therapy theories rooted in postmodernism, especially the later, evolved iterations of Structural Family Therapy. Within these approaches, I also encourage the curiosity and exploration of each individual’s internal landscape of self-parts through the integration of IFS. Additionally, I integrate somatic psychotherapy principles and techniques into relationship therapy to balance the “top-down” approach of traditional therapy with noticing and working with “bottom-up” systems of the body’s wisdom and autonomic nervous system responses that inform and impact relationships.

A note to teens and pre-teens

You are a generation of youth living through an incredible amount of change, struggle, growth, loss, and unknowns. No one understands what it is like to be you, except for you. Sharing with a therapist who is curious about your unique perspective, struggles, and strengths can help alleviate the pressure of navigating your complicated world.

I am mindful of the inherent power imbalance between young people and adults, which can make the thought of engaging in therapy feel intimidating and overwhelming. I want you to know that I will treat you with respect and center your experience throughout all of our work together, whether in individual therapy or in family therapy. Your voice matters, your perspective deserves respect, and I strive to create a nonjudgmental therapeutic space in which you feel safe to show up authentically.