Find calm in the midst of the storm. Go beyond traditional talk therapy with compassionate support and practical skills for greater wellbeing
A Mindfulness-Based Approach to:
Stress Reduction / Anxiety / Depression / Trauma / Bipolar / Relationships / Loss and Grief / Life Transitions / Personal Growth
About my clients
When stressors pile up, our old ways of coping may no longer work for us. Compassionate support and practical skills can help us cultivate less distress and greater wellbeing.
My clients seek support for:
- Better coping skills to meet the stressful demands of the modern world
- Anxiety that inhibits the ability to meet personal and/or professional goals
- Feelings of depression, isolation, self-judgment and/or shame
- Healing from trauma wounds
- Developing better communication and boundaries in relationship
- Working through life changes and transitions
- Clarifying values, meaning and goals for increased life satisfaction
- Processing grief and loss to grow and move forward
My approach to helping
From my perspective, good therapy provides a safe and compassionate space in which we can build awareness of what holds us back from happiness. When we are aware of what is holding us back we can make better choices. The single biggest predictor of success in therapy is the client-therapist relationship. Our work starts with building that relationship on a foundation of trust.
As we clarify areas of focus, I will support you in developing awareness of your thoughts, feelings, body and behavior and how these relate to the distress and challenges you face. With growing awareness, we can make choices in service of our wellbeing rather than acting out unhelpful patterns that keep us stuck.
To support the work in session, I will offer practical mindfulness and meditation tools that will empower your work outside of session.
Without awareness of our current experience (thoughts, sensations, emotions and behavior), we easily fall into old ways of coping that no longer support our health and happiness. Developing awareness of what is actually happening, moment to moment, is a powerful foundation for healing.
Good therapy builds awareness not only of what holds us back, but also our deepest inner strengths. When we “shine the light of awareness” on our lives we can begin to cultivate positive change. This relational approach not only lays the groundwork for deepening internal wisdom, but also supports new ways of interacting with others and the world around us.
While my professional specialization is mindfulness-based interventions, practical mindfulness skills may not be appropriate for every client. Together we will determine what is most supportive for you based on your needs and goals. The practice still strongly informs the dynamics of our interrelationship.
More about my practice
My approach is firmly rooted in my own personal practice of mindfulness; this deep exploration of my own human experience powerfully informs my clinical work. I endeavor to bring myself fully — mind, body and heart — to each session in support of your safety and wellbeing. I will help you build awareness of your own moment to moment experience to create a foundation for change. In general, mindful awareness helps us live with less stress and more happiness.
While mindfulness tools and techniques are not always explicitly brought into session, the mindfulness framework underlies my effort to support your development of awareness, understanding, and wisdom. When we are aware, we can change.
My specialty in Mindfulness-Based Therapy, including Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) offers a set of evidence-based, individually-tailored, practical, applicable tools that can be immediately applied to support awareness, healing and growth. I am a Certified Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) Teacher through the gold standard training program founded by Jon Kabat-Zinn at the UMass Medical Center’s Center for Mindfulness in Healthcare and Society.
My therapeutic approach is also strongly influenced by existential and person-centered traditions, each of which powerfully inform the dynamic of the therapeutic relationship. Compassionate presence and unconditional acceptance create space and safety to explore what is arising in the here and now; this awareness of what is happening in our minds, bodies and hearts forms the basis for transformative understanding and change.
Consultation
- 20 minutes to ask questions and see how Jonas can help
Session Fee
- 50-minutes
Why mindfulness?
Mindfulness helps us recognize unhelpful patterns of thinking and behaving that lead to distress. If we don’t know what’s happening, it is hard to do things differently. When we are aware of our present-moment experience, we have the power to change.
Mindfulness-based therapy can offer:
- Practical tools to better manage life, work and relationships
- Reduced distress associated with depression, anxiety and trauma
- Improved communication and interpersonal effectiveness
- Brain change associated with greater focus and problem solving
- Greater balance in the face of life’s inevitable ups and downs
- Decreased muscle tension and improved sleep
- Enhanced immune system function
- Lower blood pressure and faster wound healing
- Improvements in nutritional habits through mindful eating
The practice of mindfulness offers a set of evidence-based, individually-tailored, practical, applicable tools that can be immediately applied to support awareness, healing and growth. Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) is an evidence-based treatment specifically developed for depression, but applicable to anxiety and trauma and other issues. MBCT has been shown to be more effective at reducing depression relapse than other interventions or medication and has shown significant efficacy in the treatment of stress, anxiety, depression and other physical, mental, emotional, behavioral and relational concerns. Kindness and Compassion meditation skills also emerge from the mindfulness-based tradition as powerful tools that can support our well-being.
Sometimes simply feeling safe and being heard are the essential ingredients for profound healing.
About me
My work as a therapist is the culmination of a 28+ year effort to better understand myself, others and the world around me. I’ve been a healing professional for over 25 years and I have been a practicing therapist for more than 15 years. My primary focus is therapeutic support for adults seeking less stress and greater well-being. I work with people seeking relief from anxiety, recovery from depression, healing from trauma, better communication and boundaries in relationship, navigation of loss and grief and self development and personal growth among other issues.
In my 20s, due to various causes and conditions, I found myself struggling with depression, anxiety, substance misuse, physical pain and dysfunctional relationships. I needed to do something different. I started to practice mindfulness and yoga in an effort to better manage my distress. This first taste of mindful awareness brought a previously unknown recognition of the power of the mind/body connection.
Within a few months, meditation experiences utterly transformed my understanding and profoundly shifted the course of my life. This growing wisdom reoriented me toward serving others and teaching the skills that had given me hope. I wanted to support the change that I had experienced. That profound shift marked the beginning of decades of self-exploration, self-development and intensive education to develop the skills required to meet the needs of my clients.
Mindfulness is simple, but not easy. It takes practice, but doesn’t need to be perfect. While it takes time to develop a practice, benefits can be experienced in a relatively short time. I am still practicing and learning after 28+ years!
In support of my work, I’ve practiced mindfulness and meditation since 1997 and spent a combined total of 12+ months in silent retreat practicing the skills I offer my clients. In 2016, I co-founded Cascadia Mindfulness Institute to provide mindfulness therapy, education and training to individuals, organizations and the community. For over a decade, I worked as a research associate and taught mindfulness and loving kindness meditation groups for veterans at the Puget Sound VA Healthcare System.I previously served as Clinical Supervisor and Case Manager with the Crisis Respite Program, a 24-hour residential psychiatric crisis respite for severely and persistently mentally ill homeless adults, at Seattle’s Downtown Emergency Services Center (DESC). In 2018, I joined Seattle University Masters in Existential and Phenomenological Psychology as an adjunct professor of Mindfulness and Psychotherapy.
Contact Me
I currently have available appointments Sunday through Wednesday from 10am to 5pm and offer both in person and telehealth/online options. Please reach out to me by phone or email to schedule a free 20-minute phone consultation to explore what you are looking for from therapy and how I can help.