About Me

About Jennifer Janssen, LMSW

Jennifer Janssen, LMSW
Jennifer Janssen, LMSW

I help individuals and couples understand the patterns that keep them stuck and then find their way back to connection and levity. So you can feel more grounded in your relationships and more at ease in your own internal world. 

My work focuses on attachment, emotional safety, and the nervous system. 

Therapy with me is both gentle and transformative, with a focus on real, lasting change in how you relate, communicate, and repair.

My Specialities

Availability: I work with couples and individuals in person in Ann Arbor, and via telehealth throughout Michigan.

Birch trees

My Approach

Therapy with me is grounded in Emotionally Focused Therapy for Couples (EFT), Internal Family Systems (IFS), and somatic therapy.

I consider both your internal attachment system and the patterns that show up between you, your partners, and other core relationships in life e.g., friendships, family, work, etc.. 

In couples work, I help you slow down the cycle so you can actually see what is happening underneath the conflict. We begin to understand the emotions, protective responses, and underlying attachment needs driving the disconnection. As we work, we create space for new ways of responding so you can move from reactivity into clarity, care, and repair. My approach is attachment-based, experiential, and deeply relational, with attention to both the mind and the body.

My Background

Before becoming a therapist, I spent nearly a decade working in an environmental nonprofit focused on climate and environmental issues, held roles in advocacy, and engaged in sociology research on women’s environmental activism.

These experiences continue to shape the way I think about people within the broader systems they’re part of, and informs a more contextual, nuanced understanding of systems, relationships and change.

Outside of therapy, I’m a parent to two children, one a pre-teen and the second a toddler, which means I have lived experience of how tending to our own internal world helps us relate with more calm and compassion to our loved ones. I spend time in nature with my family and friends whenever I can, especially hiking and swimming in local lakes. I also enjoy reading, yoga, and dance. These parts of my life help me stay connected, present, and attuned to the work I do with clients every day.

Education, Credentials, & Trainings

  • Licensed Master Social Worker (LMSW)

  • Master of Social Work, University of Michigan

  • Master of Science in Resource Ecology & Management, University of Michigan

  • Bachelor of Arts in Biology, DePauw University

  • Honors sociology research on women’s environmental activism 

  • Internal Family Systems (IFS) Level I

  • Sensorimotor Psychotherapy Level I & Level II

  • Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) for Couples Level I & II

  • EFT for Couples training assistant

  • Founding member, Emotionally Focused Therapy Community of Michigan

  • Sex therapy training

  • Infant mental health training to support parents

  • Training in working with parents and youth

  • Assertive Community Treatment Internship, Washtenaw County Community Mental Health

  • Women’s Center of Southeastern Michigan Clinical Internship

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