Jen Clifton
Licensed Associate Counselor
I’m a therapist, educator, writer, and lifelong athlete. My work is shaped by both clinical training and lived experience, navigating pressure, transitions, institutions, and identity over time.
Across very different parts of my life, I’ve been drawn to noticing intricate patterns, making connections, and bringing together people and ideas in ways that open new possibilities. People have sometimes described that way of seeing and connecting as my art. That feels right to me. It’s also part of what I bring to psychotherapy: curiosity about what has shaped you, how the pieces of your life connect, and what might become possible with more freedom and room to be fully yourself.
I believe good therapy starts with paying close attention to the person in front of me.
You are the expert on your own life. My role is to help you look beneath the concerns that bring you in, understand the experiences and patterns shaping your emotional world, and notice where self-protection or familiar dynamics may no longer be serving you. From there, you get to decide what fits, what changes, and what you want for yourself.
Who I Work With
I provide depth psychotherapy for thoughtful, high capacity adults across different stages of life, navigating experiences and complications related to:
College, early adulthood, and emerging independence — identity, relationships, adult ADHD, uncertainty, emotional overwhelm, and decisions about what comes next.
Work, relationships, caregiving, and other demanding roles — burnout, adult ADHD, competing responsibilities, demanding pressures, changing relationships, and complex decisions.
Grief, transition, and changing identities — loss, career change, midlife transitions, retirement, caregiving, and questions of meaning, purpose, and possibility.
A Therapist Who Thinks in Patterns, Relationships & Systems
Before becoming a therapist, I spent more than two decades working in education, in universities, with community organizations, and in various leadership roles. Across those settings, I became interested in how people develop within relationships and systems—and how the environments we live and work in can shape our sense of ourselves, our choices, and what feels possible.
That perspective is central to how I practice therapy. I’m interested in the patterns that develop over time: how you learned to relate to yourself and other people, what you came to expect from relationships, how you respond to pressure or uncertainty, and the ways you’ve adapted to the families, communities, institutions, and cultures you’ve been part of.
I also don’t assume that everything difficult originates inside you. Sometimes distress is connected to grief, trauma, ADHD, or longstanding relational patterns. Sometimes it reflects an environment that asks too much, conflicts with your values, or offers too little room to be fully yourself. Often, it’s some combination.
Therapy gives us a place to understand those forces together—not simply to identify what’s “wrong,” but to recognize what has shaped you, what still serves you, and where you may want more freedom and flexibility.
Finding the right therapist
Finding the right therapist is about more than credentials or a list of specialties. Therapy asks you to bring parts of yourself that may be complicated, uncertain, painful, or still taking shape. The relationship needs to feel like one in which you can be curious, honest, challenged, and understood.
My style is thoughtful, engaged, and collaborative. I’ll listen closely to what you’re saying — and to the patterns, tensions, and questions underneath it.
I won’t assume that everything difficult needs to be fixed, or that every problem lives inside you. I’ll look beyond the immediate challenge to understand how your history, relationships, environments, and systems around you shape your current experience — all toward exploring with you how you might gain more access to yourself, more freedom and choice, more connection, more aliveness.
I’ll pay attention not only to the patterns and relationships you describe outside the therapy room, but also to what emerges between us. When it feels useful, I may gently invite us to consider our shared experience—giving us an opportunity to understand a familiar pattern as it unfolds in real time, explore it together, and consider what else might be possible.
From there, you get to decide what fits, what changes, and what you want for yourself.
You don’t need to know exactly what you need from therapy before you begin. If this sounds like something that might be beneficial, a consultation gives us a chance to talk about what brings you in, what you’re hoping for, and whether working together feels like a good fit.
Your Questions, Answered
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I usually take consultations by phone. In an era of endless Zoom calls, sometimes a call can feel more connective. The consultation is a brief conversation — about 15 minutes — to get a sense of one another before you decide whether you’d like to begin therapy.
You can tell me a little about what brings you in, how you hope therapy is useful to you, and anything you think would be helpful for me to know. I’ll tell you a bit about how I work — and from what you’ve told me, how I might approach working with you. I’ll answer your questions, and then we can talk about whether we might be a good fit.
You don’t need to prepare, tell me everything on your mind, or even feel like you have to give your experience a name or wrap it in a tidy story. This is really just a way of starting the conversation and beginning to gauge a sense of fit.
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It’s pretty easy to get started. Just click on one of the “Get Started” or “Reach out for an initial conversation” buttons on the site. That will take you to a 2-minute contact form, asking for your name, your contact info, what’s generally bringing you to therapy now, and asking how I can best help — by answering questions, scheduling a consultation call, or scheduling a first session.
I typically respond in 24-48 hours.
And that’s it. You’re on your way!
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You can reach out to me anytime through the contact form, by texting or calling the practice phone number, or by emailing me. If you call the practice number and don’t catch me, please leave a voicemail with your name, a callback number, and a good time to reach you.
I typically respond to messages in 24-48 hours.
If you’re looking for immediate or emergency support, please call 911, 988, or reach out to local community resources.
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The intake is a bit unusual as it’s not like any of the other sessions we’ll have. It is an initial 75-minute session that gives us more time to begin understanding what’s happening.
I typically start an intake with talking about our therapeutic relationship, confidentiality, and practice policies.
Then we’ll have a more open-ended conversation about what is going on now, and how it’s impacting you, what you’d like to be different, and some of the experiences, relationships, cultures, systems, and circumstances that may be important to understanding you.
A little later I tend to pause that part of the conversation and ask some more symptom-oriented questions — to understand how the experiences we’ve just been talking about are impacting you now and over time.
I’ll also ask some questions that are more about context — support systems in your life, family relationships, previous counseling experiences, etc.,
Over the course of the conversation, we’ll begin to build a picture together and get a sense of areas of focus and related experiences that might be productive places to start.
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Intake sessions are 75 minutes.
From there, for many people, 50 minutes is a good rhythm for ongoing weekly or biweekly therapy. It gives us enough time to do meaningful work.
A 75-minute session can be helpful when you’re beginning therapy, working through something complex, or simply find that it takes some time to arrive at what matters and you don’t want to stop just as we get there.
A 90-minute session can be useful when we’re doing deeper or more intensive work, including some EMDR sessions, or when having more time allows us to explore something fully without feeling rushed.
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I typically recommend that folks new to working with me start with 2-3 months of at least weekly or biweekly therapy. Then, it depends…
For those wanting a deeper psychodynamic experience, meeting 1-3 times per week is useful.
For most people, weekly or biweekly tends to be a good cadence — frequent enough to keep some continuity and gain traction.
For those who have done more intensive therapy with me, worked through pressing concerns that were most impactful, and are now wanting a steady place to make sense of their lives with a trusted therapist, some find that once every 3 weeks offers enough support.
I typically don’t recommend a longer stretch than 3 weeks for regular therapy as it can be difficult to create continuity from one session to the next with so much time between. And I don’t recommend this for folks who are just starting with me, those in the midst of difficult circumstances, or those with acute trauma or deeper issues that need to be worked through.
The exceptions to this tend to be around holidays or if a person is no longer in regular therapy but finds themselves either anticipating a difficult anniversary date or some such or facing something challenging in the short-term and it’s just helpful to have a one-off session or a few. If we already have a strong working relationship and you have done deeper work with me, this can be a good use of therapy.
My Background and Experience
Education
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Arizona State University, May 2025
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Arizona State University, May 2012
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Kennesaw State University, May 2008
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Kennesaw State University, May 1999
Counseling Credentials
MC, Licensed Associate Counselor (LAC-23965)
I practice under the clinical direction and Board-approved clinical supervision of Kelly Hurley, LPC. She can be reached here:
Phone Number: 480-707-8172
Psychodynamic Psychotherapy + EMDR
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San Diego Psychoanalytic Center, 2024-2026
Taught by Benoit Vincent, PhD & Carol Koenigsberger M.D
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San Diego Psychoanalytic Center, Sept 2026 - May 2027
Led by Paige Sutherland, MD, UC San Diego Health
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San Diego Psychoanalytic Center, Sept - Dec 2026
Taught by Maya Klein, PhD
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EMDR Institute
Institute is EMDRIA certified. Founded by Dr. Francis Shapiro
Trained by Katy Murray, LICSW and Hillary Sutherland, LCSW, LAC
Professional Background
Education and Community Development
Middle school teacher
Middle school & high school basketball, softball, track coach
Professor, University of Missouri
National Writing Project Director, Missouri Writing Project
Professor, Rhetoric and Writing Studies, University of Texas at El Paso
Director, Rhetoric and Writing Studies, University of Texas at El Paso
Assistant Director, Community Economic Development, Arizona State University
Psychotherapy
Licensed Associate Counselor, Owner - Jen Clifton Counseling & Psychotherapy
Licensed Associate Counselor - Evolve Counseling & Behavioral Health Services