Jess DiGiorgianni,LCMHC

I conceptualize therapy as a collaborative and often disruptive process in which therapist and client together determine treatment content and goals, working to create an environment of compassion, challenge and insight capable of motivating those changes which constitute so much of the meaning of therapy. In attempting to individualize treatment, I cultivate an integrative responsiveness utilizing those techniques that seem best able to serve the client's needs and promote our therapeutic goals. While these goals often include addressing pressing issues in solution-focused fashion, they also typically extend beyond mere symptom relief or problem solving to include the enhancement of psychological capacities and resources through self exploration and discovery in the context of a safe and authentic therapeutic relationship. I try never to lose sight of a person's strengths and courage in an undertaking that can prove demanding and uncomfortable as well as satisfying and enriching. And I often remind myself that as a therapist I exist to make myself unnecessary by facilitating a person's own therapeutic potential and by modeling a way of being that can inspire a person to actualize their own healing strategies and find their own paths toward growth and self knowledge.
My practice is wide-ranging, both with respect to the ages, backgrounds, beliefs and orientations of the people I see as well as their reasons for seeking therapy. I believe this breadth of practice heightens my awareness of the complexity of human psychology and increases my capacity for attunement and insight, enabling me to better appreciate the difficulties, distress, hopes and abilities of those who have joined me in the therapeutic process.
In addition to my training in clinical psychology with experiences in community mental health and hospital settings as well as private practice, I have a Ph.D. in cognitive neuroscience and an M.A. in classical languages and philosophy along with extensive teaching and research experience. This interdisciplinary and synthesizing background has contributed to my flexibility, openness and inquisitiveness and informs the interest I take in each of the individuals with whom I work, often proving useful in helping them achieve new perspectives, find new connections, and generate new understandings of themselves and their lives.