Licensed to practice in 3 states and accepts 43 insurances. Specializes in Anxiety, Life Transitions, Self Esteem and 3 more.

Jay Varela

LPC, 11 years of experience
Solution oriented
Open-minded
Direct
VirtualAvailable

About me

I work with high-functioning adults who look like they have it together and are quietly running on empty — people whose competence has become the thing they hide behind. If you hold yourself to standards nobody else could meet, if your worth feels like something you have to earn, if you can't rest without guilt, we'll likely work well together. My foundation is TEAM-CBT, an evidence-based approach I hold Level 3 Advanced certification in through the Feeling Good Institute, and I train regularly with the Beck Institute. It gives our work real structure and proven tools. But symptoms usually rest on something older — beliefs about what you have to be in order to be worth something, patterns in how you relate, things you've learned to think your way around instead of feel. So we don't stop at coping strategies. We work toward what's underneath. I see clients virtually across Virginia, Florida, and Texas.

Get to know me

In our first session together, here's what you can expect

The first session is about understanding, not diagnosing you in forty-five minutes. We'll talk about what brought you here, what's been keeping you stuck, and what you're actually hoping changes — including the things that are hard to say out loud. I'll also have you complete a brief mood survey, which gives us a real baseline to track against so neither of us is guessing later about whether this is working. You won't leave with a worksheet. You'll leave with a sense of how I think about what's going on, whether the way I work fits what you need, and where we'd start. If it's not a fit, I'll say so and help you find someone better suited.

The biggest strengths that I bring into our sessions

I understand before I intervene. A lot of people arrive having done therapy that managed the surface without ever reaching what was driving it — or therapy that was warm but went nowhere. I do both halves: real structure and evidence-based tools, and the deeper emotional and relational work underneath them. I'm direct. If I notice something happening between us in the room, I'll name it, because that's usually where the pattern is most visible and most workable. I track progress every session, so we're never guessing about whether therapy is helping. And I'm not easily thrown. Shame, self-criticism, the things you've never said to anyone — I can sit with those without flinching or rushing you past them.

The clients I'm best positioned to serve

I work best with high-functioning adults whose competence has become the thing they hide behind — people who look fine from the outside and are quietly running on empty. Often that shows up as perfectionism, self-worth that has to be earned, or a flatness underneath a life that objectively looks right. The people I do my best work with tend to be thoughtful and self-aware, sometimes to a fault. They can analyze their patterns fluently and still feel stuck, because insight alone hasn't changed anything. Many have done therapy before and found it either too surface-level or too unfocused. They're willing to go past explanation into what they actually feel — which is usually the harder and more useful direction. If you've been managing something for a long time and you're tired of managing it, we'll likely work well together.

Specialties

Top specialties

Anxiety

Self Esteem

Other specialties

Depression

Grief

Identifies as

Accepts

Location

Virtual

My treatment methods

Cognitive Behavioral (CBT)

TEAM-CBT — an advanced, evidence-based extension of CBT developed by Dr. David Burns at Stanford. I hold Level 3 Advanced certification through the Feeling Good Institute and train regularly with the Beck Institute. It gives our work real structure, proven tools, and session-by-session progress tracking so we're never guessing about whether therapy is helping. I use it as a foundation rather than a ceiling — most of what I treat rests on older emotional and relational patterns, and structured cognitive work alone doesn't reach those.

Psychodynamic

I work with the patterns underneath the presenting problem: how early relationships shaped what you expect from people now, what your defenses are protecting, and why insight alone often isn't enough to change something. This is where symptoms stop looking like malfunctions and start making sense.

Attachment-based

How you learned to stay safe and connected in your earliest relationships tends to organize how you relate now — pulling away when someone gets close, over-giving, bracing for abandonment. We work with those patterns directly, including as they show up between us.

Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT)

Many high-functioning people are fluent at analyzing their feelings and much less practiced at having them. This work slows things down enough to feel what's actually there, because insight that never reaches the emotion tends not to hold.

, 8 ratings
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