Jen I Kress, PsyD, PMH-C

People often fear that if others truly know them at the deepest level, they will be rejected, judged or pitied. I have found that the opposite is true: to know people deeply is to have compassion for them. And miraculously, being deeply known is healing. This is the basis for the work I do with my clients.

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For me to do this work successfully, my first task is to earn your trust. Our therapeutic relationship will contain the basics of any good relationship: consent, transparency, respect, and probably some laughs. I also find that part of earning your trust is to make sure you get some prompt progress toward your goals. I tend to find a balance with my clients: incorporating both short-term change (identifying here-and-now problems and agreeing on action steps) and the long-term exploration that leads to lasting and deep change. By creating this frame, my goal is twofold: one, you build trust in yourself, your power to make change, and our process together. And two, we make space for you to show your full self - to explore your experience vulnerably, bravely, and without apology for what we find together.

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Therapy is a unique chance to honor and understand the strengths and challenges of your personal history, and to identify how that history impacts your current experience. If you feel limited or scarred by experiences in your past, therapy can be revolutionary. Figuring out why you are the way you are is empowering, and you deserve to be known deeply.

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I have been a fan of therapy almost all my life. I fell in love with therapy as a client, and took the leap of enrolling in a doctoral psychology program in the hope that I would enjoy the therapist role as well. I could not have picked a better professional fit. I find therapy fun, invigorating, fascinating, moving, and fulfilling. In graduate school, I developed a specialty in long-term treatment of trauma; the kind of treatment which utilizes the therapeutic relationship to create profound, enduring change in a person’s experience of themselves and the world. I love this work, and completed my doctoral paper on the importance of promoting a client’s voice in the long-term treatment of complex trauma. 

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A specific area of specialization for me is intervention in peripartum mental health issues, including birth trauma, postpartum depression, relational issues that arise after having a baby, and anxiety in the prenatal or postpartum periods.

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“When I dare to be powerful, to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less important that I am afraid.” 

-Audre Lorde