(she/her)
New to Grow
I'm Jaclyn, an individual and parenting support therapist in Southern California. I love working with parents trying their best to do it all. I have 18 years experience working with neurodivergent populations (primarily Autism and ADHD), not in behavior training but in gaining self-understanding and in helping them to determine and work toward their own goals for themselves (not simply society's goals for them). As a therapist, infertility/donor IVF warrior, and adoptive mom I also bring personal and professional experience into supporting people as they figure out their path to parenthood and later process the journey they've made.
Our first session will focus on what brings you to therapy and I can start helping you map out some goals for our time together. Depending on what's bringing you to me, the focus might be on getting you some immediate soothing strategies before we begin to dive into your history, or we might prioritize some history-taking from the first session.
The consistent feedback that I get from my clients is that I have a soothing presence that helps them feel at ease, that they feel that I really care (and I do!). I believe that rapport, relational ease, and the therapeutic alliance that you have with a therapist is foundational because you must feel safe to be open enough to do the work in therapy. I use our therapeutic relationship to guide you through insight-building, mindfulness, and somatic approaches to support integration and healing.
I have almost 20 years experience supporting neurodivergent populations, primarily Autism and ADHD. I love working directly with these kind of clients to address their goals, work on relationships, and/or process past traumas from childhood behavior therapy or feeling misunderstood. I also enjoy working with neurotypical clients who are parenting or in other relationships with neurodivergent loved ones to better understand their family member's experience and support healthy relationships between the individual and their loved one. As a previous infertility warrior, donor IVF mom, and adoptive mom I additionally have personal and professional experience in supporting those who are at different stages of their fertility and/or adoption journey. The loss of a hoped-for child or assumed outcome in family planning have a way of bringing to the surface prior losses, traumas, childhood experiences, and identity issues that can impact experiences and behaviors and benefit from insight, support, and healing. My clients are all different, however many share experiences of personal stess, relational stress, anxiety, and other hardships and symptoms. I tailor my approach to each individual based on their own unique experience and goals and enjoy using a mixture of attachment- and relationship-focused approaches, mindfulness, trauma-informed somatic therapies, and sensory strategies to support insight and healing.
Attachment-based
Assess client's early attachment relationships as well as current attachment relationships to gain insight into relationship dynamics. Support clients to build new and healthy attachment relationships inside and outside of therapy to grow toward earned-secure attachment and healthier relationship dynamics.
Mindfulness-Based Therapy
Use practical mindfulness-based tools to manage stress and anxiety, interrupt thought loops, and ground clients in the present.
Relational
Establish trust and a secure base in the therapeutic relationship and utilize attachment lens, cognitive behavioral methods, and trauma-informed care to assess relationship patterns, where they come from, and start building new patterns more aligned with a client's relational needs.
Somatic
Support clients to understand mind-body connection and where they hold different experiences and trauma in their bodies. Support clients acknowledge and (where appropriate) release pent-up tension and emotion through mindfulness techniques, movement, and knowledge/practice of sensorimotor activities that support better integration and soothing.
Strength-Based
Help patient's gain insight into their strengths and learn to call on/utilize those strengths to address goals and challenges.