Jaret Romano
I’m Jaret Romano, MA, NCC, LPC, and I provide trauma-focused therapy to adults who are looking to better understand themselves, work through painful experiences, and make meaningful changes in their lives. My approach is active, collaborative, and grounded in evidence-based therapies including EMDR, DBT, parts work, and trauma stabilization. I believe good therapy has to feel authentic. I won’t just sit back and ask, “How does that make you feel?” I’ll work alongside you to understand why certain patterns developed, how your experiences may still be affecting you today, and what we can do together to help you move forward. My goal is to create a space where you can be honest, feel understood, and do meaningful work at a pace that feels right for you.
I’m Jaret Romano, MA, NCC, LPC, and I provide trauma-focused therapy to adults who are looking to better understand themselves, work through painful experiences, and make meaningful changes in their lives.
First session
Your first session is really about getting to know each other and beginning to understand what brought you to therapy. We’ll talk about what’s been happening in your life, what you’ve been struggling with, what you’d like to change, and some of the experiences that may have shaped where you are today. You won’t be expected to tell me everything or dive into painful experiences before you’re ready. I typically use the first few sessions to understand the bigger picture, answer your questions, and make sure therapy feels collaborative rather than rushed. By the end of our first session, my hope is that you’ll have a clearer sense of how we might work together, what we may want to focus on, and what the next steps could look like. Most importantly, I want you to leave feeling that you were heard and that there’s a direction for the work ahead.
Strengths
One of the strengths I bring to therapy is that I’m active and collaborative. I don’t believe therapy should feel like you’re doing all of the talking while I sit quietly and take notes. I’ll ask questions, offer observations, help you make connections, and give you practical tools when they’re useful. I also try to balance structure with flexibility. I’m trained in approaches including EMDR, DBT, and parts work, but I don’t believe therapy should feel like following a script. We’ll use the approaches that make sense for you and adjust as we learn more about what you need. Most importantly, I try to create a space where you can be honest without feeling judged. I want you to understand not only what you’re experiencing, but why it may have developed and how we can work together to create meaningful change.
Ideal clients
I work best with adults who are ready to better understand themselves and the patterns that may be keeping them stuck. Many of the people I work with are dealing with trauma, anxiety, depression, burnout, relationship difficulties, or the effects of painful experiences that still show up in their lives today. You don’t need to have everything figured out before starting therapy. You may just know that something isn’t working anymore and that you want things to feel different. My ideal client is someone who is open to being curious about their experiences, willing to look at patterns honestly, and interested in doing more than simply managing symptoms. Together, we can work toward helping you feel more grounded, understand yourself with greater compassion, process what still hurts, and build a life that feels more aligned with who you want to be.
Origin story
I was drawn to becoming a therapist because I’ve always been interested in understanding why people think, feel, and respond the way they do, especially how our experiences can continue shaping us long after they happen. Over time, that interest became a desire to help people make sense of those patterns in a way that creates real change. What continues to inspire me about this work is watching people begin to understand themselves with more compassion, process experiences that once felt overwhelming, and realize they don’t have to keep living according to patterns that developed during some of the hardest parts of their lives. Being able to be part of that process is something I genuinely value.
Ongoing work together
Our ongoing work will depend on what brings you to therapy and what you want to change, but it will usually involve a combination of understanding patterns, building practical skills, and processing the experiences that continue to affect you. We may use approaches such as EMDR, DBT, parts work, or other trauma-focused strategies depending on what feels most useful. Progress can look different for everyone. Sometimes it means feeling less anxious, depressed, or overwhelmed. Other times, it means noticing a trigger sooner, understanding why you reacted a certain way, setting a boundary you would have avoided before, or being able to move through a difficult experience without it taking over your entire day. We’ll continue checking in about what is helping, what still feels stuck, and whether the work is moving in the direction you want. My goal is for you to not only feel better, but to understand yourself more clearly and feel increasingly confident handling life outside of therapy.
Treatment methods
EMDR
I use EMDR to help clients process experiences that still feel emotionally charged or continue to affect how they see themselves, relationships, or the world around them. Sometimes people understand logically that something happened in the past, but their body and nervous system still respond as if the experience is happening now. EMDR can help reduce that ongoing emotional intensity. Before beginning EMDR processing, we’ll spend time understanding what you’ve been through, identifying the patterns or memories that may be connected to what you’re experiencing now, and making sure you have enough stability and coping tools in place. During EMDR, I use bilateral stimulation, such as guided eye movements or other forms of alternating stimulation, while helping you work with the memory, emotions, thoughts, and body sensations connected to the experience. The goal isn’t to erase what happened. It’s to help the experience feel more fully processed so it has less power over your present life.
Internal Family Systems (IFS)
I use IFS and parts work to help clients understand the different parts of themselves that may show up in response to stress, relationships, or painful experiences. You might notice one part of you that becomes highly critical, another that wants to avoid conflict, another that feels responsible for everyone else, or a younger part that still carries fear, shame, or hurt from the past. Rather than viewing these reactions as something wrong with you, we’ll get curious about why those parts developed and what they may have been trying to protect you from. Often, patterns that are frustrating in the present originally developed for a very understandable reason. In our work, we may slow down and notice what a particular part is feeling, what it believes, and what it needs. The goal isn’t to get rid of parts of yourself, but to help them feel safer, less reactive, and less responsible for managing everything. Over time, this can help you respond to yourself and your life with more understanding, flexibility, and compassion.
Person-centered (Rogerian)
I use a person-centered, humanistic approach to create a therapy relationship where you can feel safe enough to be honest and understood without feeling judged. I believe therapy works best when it feels like a genuine collaboration rather than something being done to you. That means I’ll bring my training, experience, and perspective into the room, but I’ll also respect that you are the expert on your own life. We’ll pay attention to what matters most to you, what feels meaningful, and what pace feels manageable. I also try to understand the whole person, not just a diagnosis or set of symptoms. Your relationships, values, experiences, strengths, and the ways you’ve learned to cope all matter. The goal is to help you better understand yourself, make choices that feel more aligned with who you are, and create change that feels authentic rather than forced.
Trauma-Informed Care
I use a trauma-informed approach throughout therapy, which means I pay attention not only to what you’ve experienced, but also to how those experiences may have affected your sense of safety, trust, relationships, emotions, and the way your nervous system responds to stress. Trauma-informed care means we don’t rush the process or assume that talking about painful experiences is always the best place to start. We’ll focus on creating enough safety and stability first, understanding what helps you feel grounded, and moving at a pace that feels manageable. I also try to understand behaviors and coping patterns in context. Instead of asking, “What’s wrong with you?” we look at what happened, what you had to learn in order to get through it, and how those responses may still be showing up now. The goal is to help you feel more in control of the therapy process while building greater understanding, flexibility, and safety in your everyday life.
Location
Virtual sessions
Identifies as
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Licensed in
- New HampshireLicense 2573
- PennsylvaniaLicense PC011655