Dr. Jennifer Mossgrove

Hello there. If you are reading this, then you’ve already taken one of the hardest, and bravest, steps in therapy. You reached out for help. You realized that something is getting in the way of feeling like yourself. Something is getting in the way of you living your life the way you want to be living it. Something is causing you to experience sadness or anxiousness that is too stressful to handle. Something is causing you problems in your personal relationships or at work.

No matter what it is, therapy is the place to sort these things out. There are answers to how and why we are the way we are. We aren't stuck. We don’t have to just “get by”. Therapy offers the opportunity to grow into a healthier, happier, more resilient version of oneself that thrives. In my 16 years of work as a psychologist, I have made this journey many times and, in many ways, with my clients. In my practice, I predominantly work with teenagers and adults. My work today is very much a product of my early experiences as a graduate student working at a community mental health center that had a program providing counseling for individuals experiencing domestic violence and/or abuse. These days, my clients come to counseling for anxiety, depression, and trauma across a variety of circumstances.

I view therapy as a collaborative effort between the therapist and client to relieve stress and find meaningful resolutions. I draw on various theoretical orientations and approaches to therapy based upon a client’s cultural and individual background, current problem and life circumstance, and goals the client has for therapy. My goal as a clinician is to help clients understand who they are and what makes them tick. When clients know these things, they are better able to identify stresses and address problems as they come up instead of getting bogged down. Understanding where they have been and where they are still headed allows clients to make more informed choices about themselves, their relationships and their circumstances. Therapy can help clients feel more in control and empowered to confront the things that are getting in the way of their goals. Clients are able to heal the things they carry with them that still get in the way of how they want to think and feel. All of this promotes healthier functioning and future well-being.

The initial part of therapy is focused on building your set of coping skill to manage unwanted symptoms and lower the negative impact they have on day-to-day life. Once things are going a little better, therapy focuses on understanding what has given rise to dysfunctional patterns in one's life, what maintains them, and how to adapt those ways of being in the world so that they do not continue to disrupt your life in unwanted ways. My theoretical background and the therapeutic techniques I choose primarily come from cognitive-behavioral, psychodynamic/insight-oriented and humanistic/client-centered theories of human behavior.

In your first session, our primary goal is for you to get me up to speed of what has brought you to therapy and what you hope to work on, achieve, resolve, etc. We can talk initially about your understanding of what is bothering you, including the background and/or circumstances that led to where you are currently in your life. I will also have questions about your personal experience of what it is like for you now, day-to-day, in terms of how you are thinking, feeling and behaving given the current problem(s) you are facing. Just as our physical immune systems can get worn down, and we eventually catch that nasty cold, stress also weakens our psychological capacity to cope. This is typically when anxiety or depression or some other form of emotional symptoms appear.

By the end of your first session, I will offer you my initial assessment of your situation, and my clinical opinion of where it could be helpful to go from here. If that includes continuing in therapy, then I can talk to you about what moving forward entails. More importantly, you and I can decide if we are a good fit to work together. If not, then I can help by providing referrals to other clinicians or programs that may better suit your needs.