Jake H. Jacobsen (HE/HIM)

My Approach to Helping

My approach is eclectic including: Psychodynamic Psychotherapy, Attachment theory, Harm Reduction and Creative Arts Therapy. My practice experience includes counseling people with anxiety, PTSD/trauma (AIDS pandemic, 9/11, Covid) depression and other mood disorders, addiction, adult children of alcoholics, neurodivergent adults/youth, sexuality, gender identity (medical and/or social gender transitioning) for teens and adults who identify as transgender or non-binary and those who are questioning their gender identity, LGBTQ family/partners, people living with HIV/AIDS, and other life challenging conditions.

Why I Became a Therapist

I've been in the LGBTIA+ community since I was a teenager, a main factor that led me into the field of psychology. In the late 1970's luckily I had a therapist that did not pathologize my coming out as queer and that meant the world to me. It meant that I could begin to envision a full life as a queer person in an era when everything I saw on TV, heard at school, or read in the newspaper told me that being queer was a pathology. Today we're in a time of profound socio-political change with a dramatic increase in anti-LGBT+ bills/laws attempting to stop trans youth rights to access healthcare in some states, racism and violence against POC, erasure of black history from education, anti-semitism, banning books, the effects of climate change and fears of rising autocracy. These issues are all interconnected and need to be seen and acknowledged in order to do the work towards the fight for social justice and our civil rights. Addressing these issues in therapy is fundamental for healing.