Meet Jenny

Hi, my name is Jenny.
Because we bring our whole selves into the therapy room, I would like to tell you a bit about myself. I am a queer white person, a parent, a Madison native, and a trauma survivor. My previous careers
include teaching middle school and working with families experiencing homelessness. I’m a licensed clinical social worker with over seventeen years of social work experience and six years of teaching experience. I believe in normalizing mental health struggles and use self-disclosure at times to that end. I find that this helps to decrease stigma and can help individuals feel more comfortable sharing their own struggles and journeys. When I’m not working or parenting, I take great pleasure in team sports, outdoor time in nature, bike trails, and hiking with my dog. Additionally, I excel at eating vast quantities of ice cream.

 

If you are seeking evidence-based and body-based interventions to support your mental wellness, I may be a great fit for you. I believe that you are the expert of your own life and that with the right tools and supports in place, each of us is able to make changes that improve our mental health. I am here to support you in your journey should you choose to work together to that end.

I specialize in teaching and practicing sensorimotor skills. These can modify trauma-based responses by attending to the body. I’m both passionate and experienced in working with individuals to collaboratively find ways to explore how trauma impacts our experience and perception both via internal stimuli as well as in how we interact with the world around us. These methods work best with individuals who have some degree of insight into their habitual patterns of behavior and feeling as well as openness to working with changes in posture, breathing, space, and movement.

Others describe me as “warm, kind, compassionate, a lifelong learner,” and “perceptive, consistent, reliable, patient, and grounded.” I derive a lot of joy from seeing my own growth as well as contributing to healing in others. I also don’t shy away from drawing attention to harmful or counterproductive patterns of behavior when that kind of intervention is needed.
As a practitioner, I draw primarily from modalities that are body-based, such as sensorimotor therapy, meditation, yoga, breath work, etc. I would be a good fit for you if you have interest in shifting your attention to notice what’s going on for you internally, and then harnessing this new awareness to shift your perception and attention to external stimuli as well as build grounding and coping skills in order to heal. Because trauma, particularly complex trauma, is stored in the brain stem, a part of the brain that doesn’t have access to language, this modality is particularly effective for treating trauma, recoding memory, and practicing new relational skills such as boundary-setting, reaching out, pleasure, and play.

Finally, I have great interest in Internal Family Systems as well as polyvagal theory and sensorimotor
sequencing. These modalities pair nicely with the work I do with clients and help to shape the way in which I frame our work together along with an awareness of how familial, cultural, and societal
expectations influence and shape our habitual patterns. If this sounds like a good match for what you want in a therapist, I look forward to working with you!