Meet the Team

Jen Patterson

Founder, LCSW

Hi! I’m so glad you found your way here. My work centers on supporting individuals and couples navigating midlife (35+), perimenopause/menopause related shifts, relationships, neurodivergence (ADHD, HSP, and autism) anxiety, depression, and the lasting impact of earlier life experiences that may have been carried alone for too long. I also support individuals impacted by cancer or chronic pain/illness who are navigating changes in their bodies and seeking emotional support and integration.

As an AEDP (Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy) therapist, I work from an experiential, relational approach. This means we don’t only talk about what’s happening in your life; we slow down together and gently turn toward your emotional experience in the here and now. We nurture what has been carried beneath the surface (often alone), creating enough safety for deeper feelings to emerge, be understood, and offer care to parts of you that have longed to be held.

I believe you have an innate capacity to heal, and that can happen in the presence of a caring other. 

One of my special interests is honoring midlife as a sacred threshold. This transition holds an invitation into deeper truths that often rise to the surface, and there is an urgent welcoming to reconnect with yourself, your relationships, and what matters most to the truest part of you. It is often a season where we can no longer tolerate what feels misaligned, and something (more) deep and honest is created. I would love to support you through this stage of immense personal emergence!

Jen’s Offerings

  • Jen supports individuals seeking help with :

    • Anxiety

    • Depression

    • Life and identity transitions

    • Grief

    • Complex trauma

    • Midlife

    • Neurodivergence

    • Cancer support

    • Chronic pain

    Jen has found her home as a therapist in AEDP (Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy. )You can read more about it here: https://aedpinstitute.org/about-aedp-psychotherapy/# and a short video here: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/yxDWuM0lr4w

  • Jen supports couples navigating: parenting, neurodivergence and sensory differences, communication, intimacy, empty-nesting, and the complex seasons of loss and grief. She draws from Transformative Couples Therapy (TCT)  in her work with couples, supporting partners through ruptures and repairs, deepening understanding, and gently rebuilding connection where it has been strained or lost. You can read more about Transformative Couples Therapy here:https://tctinstitute.org/

    Rates for Couples : $175 for 60 minutes, $200 for 80 minutes.

  • RED ROOTS

    An Expressive Arts Circle Exploring Womanhood, Motherhood & Midlife

    There is a particular kind of becoming that happens in midlife.

    The body changes. Relationships shift. Children grow and leave. Parents age. Desires shift. Old identities loosen. Some things are grieved. Some things are finally named. And beneath it all, something deeper may be taking root.

    Red Roots is an intimate expressive arts circle for women exploring the tender, complicated, creative territory of midlife.

    Together, we will use writing, collage, imagery, movement, nature, ritual, poetry, and simple art-making to explore what it means to inhabit this season of womanhood as a threshold to honor.

    The Meaning of Red Root

    Bloodroot has long held symbolic meaning in Indigenous and folk traditions. Its vivid red sap has been associated with Red Root has long held symbolic meaning in Indigenous and folk traditions. Its vivid red sap has been associated with life, vitality, protection, transformation, and renewal.

    Emerging early in spring, Red Root can be seen as a symbol of courage in the face of change and the willingness to rise into something new, even when the conditions are uncertain.

    For Red Roots, we draw on these themes as invitations to explore our own seasons of change: what we are releasing, what we are protecting, what is asking to emerge, and what is beginning to take root.

    We will begin meeting on Sept 8th and will continue meeting the second Monday of every month. Virtual and in-person available.

    Reach out to Jen for more information.

Jen’s Story

I am a sensitive creature, an empath, a mother, partner, and aspiring poet who feels life deeply. I am drawn to quiet, intentional moments: slow mornings, tending to relationships with my four grown children, listening to birdsong, engaging in creative rituals, forest trails with my dog, and moonlit conversations with family and friends around a fire. I have learned (am still learning) how to tend to my sensitive nervous system and to honor my body’s natural capacity.

Deep care for people and curiosity about their inner world has been with me since childhood. Motherhood has shaped and deepened this curiosity, teaching me presence and attunement in profound ways. My experience of motherhood has been a kind of initiation into the slow, sacred unraveling of who I thought I was. It broke me open in ways that are both ordinary and mystical, inviting me to become fluent in contradiction: softness and fierceness; exhaustion and devotion; loss of self and deepened self.

I love thrifting with coffee in hand, decorating with vintage finds and tending to my small micro-farm of goats, chickens, and wildflowers within the blue ridge mountain landscape. I’m comfortable talking about the deep, tender things of life: of death, of aging, of grief, of uncertainties, of fear, and yes, of course, the deepest joys and desires.

These parts of me are not separate from my work. My lived experiences inform how I show up with clients as a warm, compassionate, and present companion to both the ache and beauty of being human. I offer an embodied sense of: I’m with you in this. We’ll find a way through together.

Education, Licensure and Trainings

Virginia Commonwealth University, MSW ‘23

Virginia Tech, B.S. Family and Child Development ‘99

VA Department of Health Professions License #0904020444

AEDP Level 2

200 HR Yoga teacher training at HYC

Read more on Psychology Today

Let’s Work Together

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