Hello and welcome to my profile! I received my doctorate in Clinical Psychology in 2005 and I am a licensed Clinical Psychologist in Illinois and Nevada. I enjoy working with patients to foster personal growth and to help them feel more empowered to overcome life struggles. Our goal in working together is to help you gain insight for the future, so you can lead a more fulfilling life. My clinical interests and experience include working with eating and body image struggles, trauma, fertility/pregnancy, and relationship issues, but I also have experiences working with life transitions, depression and anxiety. Coping with trying to navigate relationships, life events and your inner self can be difficult. Together, as a team, we will focus on manifesting that change and explore how to make those changes through new ways of feeling and thinking. I view therapy as tending to a garden. We all have times when we feel withered and have not been tending enough to our own needs and relationships. We lose touch with ourselves and/or others, lacking the nourishment and support we need to flourish. Therapy is about picking the weeds out, feeding the soul and invigorating your growth to become a more healthy being. It is not easy to ask for help or to take the first step to seek a more fulfilling and happier life. My goal as a therapist is to harness that courage and work towards a better understanding of yourself and cultivate strategies to lead a more integrated life.
What can clients expect to take away from sessions with you?
Our first session is a time for us to begin to develop our connection. I like to spend the majority of our time together learning about you and what brought you to this point of seeking therapy. We will spend a few minutes at the beginning going over any questions you may have and addressing important items such as confidentiality. The rest of our time together will be creating a narrative of who you are and starting to build our relationship. The first session can be more structured than other sessions in that I might be asking a lot of questions to get a more global understanding of what is going on and so we can identify collaborative a focus for our work together.
Explain to clients what areas you feel are your biggest strengths.
I have always been actively involved in empowering people to have a better relationship with their body and mind. I have experience not only working with eating disorders in different therapeutic settings (PHP/IOP programs, outpatient and college counseling), but also have participated in doing a lot of outreach/curriculum for schools and companies with regards to eating and body image. I believe that reclaiming trust in your body by understanding your body story, grieving the trauma related to that story, and working to develop a new way of being in your body can help heal the connection with the mind. Then, you can work on finding ways of embracing life and focusing on joy again. Thus, I incorporate both Healthy at Every Size and Body Trust programs into my work with body image.
About Dr. Jen Schafer
Specializes in
Serves ages
Appointments
VirtualMy treatment methods
Psychodynamic
My education and training was working with the psychodynamic modality. I believe that your past relationships with others and yourself can be a window to the world of understanding your current functioning. So, this modality is integrated into my work to deepen the therapeutic relationship as well. I believe the relationship between the therapist and patient is key to change.
Acceptance and commitment (ACT)
I have integrated ACT into my work with many patients as I believe that many are looking to have a more fulfilled life. I think sometimes we get distracted by other people's values or ideas and we lose sight of our own desires and wishes. ACT is a great a way to reconnect with your values in different areas of your life and explore if you are actually living by those values and if not, how do we help you do that so you are feeling more engaged and fulfilled in life.
Cognitive Behavioral (CBT)
CBT has been an integral part of my work for many years. I believe that having the understanding of how your thoughts impact your mood and behaviors is integral to change. Our work together would consist of identifying ways that you might be thinking in negative/unhealthy ways and working on restructuring those distortions in order to cultivate a new way of thinking. This shift will allow for movement in positive directions with your mood and behaviors.
Daialectical Behavior (DBT)
DBT is a helpful for modality for most of us in that we can all learn new skills to manage emotions better and find balance. DBT engages people to learn skills to increase their ability to manage distress, increase mindfulness, learn how to understand your emotions better, and develop healthy relationships. It can also be helpful for increasing healthy coping strategies and decreasing unhealthy ones you may use at this time.
Eclectic
This is my main treatment modality and it consists of integrating different modalities into treatment. In my experience, I believe that we are each unique beings and that no one form of treatment is going to work with everyone. We all have different personalities, life experiences, and ways we manage through it all. I like to envision that I have a tool belt with different options for support and that together we formulate the best plan to help you achieve those changes. So, my methods are organic and fluid in that we are also always changing and growing. There might be times where you need a more structured focus with specific skills or a shift to a more deeper understanding of your ways of relating in the world.