Jennifer Horton (she/her)

Anxiety is the most common mental health concern I treat. I'm skilled at helping clients put their symptoms and coping patterns into context and in supporting them as they use their personal motivators to grow more effective patterns and skills. I bring a mix of experiential activities, CBT, DBT, ERP, positive psychology, motivation based, and solutions focused interventions to the table for treating anxiety which provides clients a range of choices in how they want to partner with me for change

Teens have unique challenges that I enjoy addressing in therapy. Issues with roles, self-esteem, power differentials, authority structures, communication, identity formation, self harm as a coping strategy, social pressure, and social anxiety are common. I enjoy helping teens navigate these issues and watching them find the power of stepping into healthy patterns and goals. I use experiential activities often with teens as well as DBT, CBT, motivational interviewing, and positive psychology.

Self esteem work can be challenging for clients. It is difficult to put in the work when you don't feel worthy of it. I use a mix of positive psychology, motivational interviewing, and DBT within a client-centered practice to help clients feel supported, validated, and empowered during the process of learning and embracing the true value of the self.

I do DBT informed care with virtually all of my clients. I was trained in DBTi while working in addiction treatment and correctional settings and have found that it translates well across a variety of symptoms, settings, diagnoses, and issues. I also love that DBT-based materials are easily accessible to clients online for use in telehealth sessions and out of session homework.

I use motivational interviewing in initial assessments and throughout therapy with clients because I know what really motivates clients is what *they* want, not what the therapist wants. I have found over my career that my clients who can identify and lean into their personal motivators tend to be more engaged and achieve goals faster in therapy. Motivational interviewing helps me keep client's motivators at the center of everything we do in therapy.

I began using ERP skills heavily in the aftermath of COVID lockdown when I began to see a dramatic uptick in mental health issues caused by the effects of continued use of avoidance as a primary coping mechanism. I primarily use ERP to help people with panic disorder, social anxiety/social phobia, other specific phobias, OCD, and borderline personality disorder.