Nevada & California Therapist
Jennifer Hopes
Hi, I’m Jennifer and I work with adults and teens struggling with perfectionism, anxiety, depression, codependency, and trauma. I combine an emotionally-focused and attachment-based lens to gather insights into the various parts of you that create a cohesive whole. Together we will work to meet your parts with curiosity and compassion, learning the protective nature of these parts, while unburdening them, healing past hurts, and ultimately redefining your Self.
Outwardly, you're a force to be reckoned with. Inwardly, you’re barely keeping it together.
Outwardly, you’re a force to be reckoned with. You're often described as confident, ambitious, self-driven, successful, and capable of handling anything. Inwardly, you're barely keeping it together. You feel anxious, insecure, and doubtful of your abilities. You may even think of yourself as an imposter most days, grateful that no one else has caught on.
The problem is you're caught in this cycle of trying to be the best so no one will notice what's really going on inside. You're trying to achieve the impossible - perfection. Despite your ability to overachieve and appear perfect, you find yourself suffering in silence with an insurmountable emptiness and paralyzing fear. You feel stuck, alone, hopeless, inadequate, overwhelmed, and inauthentic.
You used to be able to carry on, pretending to be happy and ignoring your own dissatisfaction, but recently you are finding this more challenging. You are finding it difficult to muster the energy necessary to “pretend.” The constant worry about how others perceive you, coupled with anticipating the thoughts and feelings of others in an effort to ensure they are happy, has you riddled with anxiety. So you avoid friends and family, becoming racked with more and more guilt for not keeping up appearances. You feel isolated and wonder why you “can’t just be normal like everyone else.”
Reaching out to family and friends about your struggle feels counterintuitive because you don’t want to burden them and you are afraid they’ll view you differently.
I can help.
I help perfectionists, overachievers, and people-pleasers struggling with depression and anxiety develop understanding and clarity in who they are, find value in their worth, and live that truth more freely.
My clients often come to therapy striving to maintain an image of perfection, motivated by a fear of burdening others. As a result, they are often overwhelmed by obsessive worries about how others perceive them and crippling depression from the toll of denying their authentic self. My clients become transformed in therapy as they begin to have awareness of what they have to offer the world, leading to value in their worth and unabashed acceptance of their whole self, ultimately resulting in decreased depression/anxiety and increased self-esteem.
For more than a decade, I have worked to empower clients to come to know their true self and incorporate that authenticity into their relationships, work, and full-bodied existence. I don’t see clients as mental health disorders, or even as symptoms of a mental health disorder, but rather as dynamic parts of a larger whole – those parts having shaped their current stance in the world.
Together we will work to get a sense of who you are, how you have come to be, who you still want to be, and how to incorporate all of those parts into a more cohesive whole. With therapy you can find more understanding and confidence by looking at past hurts with curiosity, creating space to acknowledge and honor those wounds, gain clarity in how they have shaped who you are, establish healthier patterns as a result of this new awareness, and live that truth more freely.
If you are tired of being at the mercy of your perfectionism and are ready to live more authentically, then contact me today at 661-477-2196.
My Services
45-minute Virtual Session
90-minute Virtual Session
In-Person Walk & Talk Session
Only available to Reno/Tahoe Residents during the months of May-September
The Therapy Process
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Contact us by phone or email.
We’ll respond within 24-business hours to schedule your free phone intake.
The intake will take 10-30 minutes to complete over the phone. We’ll ask a variety of questions related to your therapy needs. You only have to answer the questions you are comfortable with.
After review of your intake, you’ll be notified that you’ve been connected with a therapist based on your preferences and/or goodness-of-fit. If we think you would benefit from an outside provider then we will notify you and provide contact information for those providers in lieu of our services.
Your therapist will follow-up within 24-business hours to schedule your initial session and provide additional details about your therapy.
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After scheduling your first session, your therapist will send you an email with a link to your client portal. This portal will give you access to all of your documents and billing information, as well as access to your virtual session (if being seen virtually).
Complete the initial documents provided in the portal before your first session begins.
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We will spend the first session reviewing your client rights, business policies, and getting to know one another.
Ask me any questions you might have. I will also take this time to get to know you (e.g. what’s currently bringing you to therapy, your current life circumstances, relevant past experiences, what therapy you might have done in the past, etc.) while exploring what you hope to gain from this experience.
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We will continue to get to know one another in the early sessions of our work.
This will gradually begin to shift as we develop a trusting relationship and explore deeper emotional stuck points for you. Sessions can begin to feel heavier during this phase so we will monitor closely to make sure the pace is right for you.
You may find yourself doing a lot of reflection outside of sessions, while also making behavioral and relational changes, during this phase.
As you gradually develop new ways of understanding yourself, you will begin to feel more rooted in, and more concretely aligned, with Self. You may find yourself able to turn towards previously frustrating parts of yourself with gratitude and compassion. You may find you have more confidence. You may notice that your relationships come with more ease.
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In this phase of treatment, we will review the progress you have made. We will evaluate whether the current treatment goals are still appropriate. We will evaluate whether we need to make adjustments to, remove, or add treatment goals.
If it seems like an appropriate time to pause or stop sessions then we will discuss how you would like to proceed with that.
If it seems that we have more work to do, then we will discuss how you would like to proceed with that.
FAQs
What if I want to go slower in therapy?
I will meet you where you are and go at your pace. The above is simply an example for clients that are eager to do quick work. In my own experience as a client over the years, I too have needed to slow down my therapy progress in order to experience the full breath of my feelings and allow them to wash over me, so I can relate to clients that have similar desires.
What if I am looking for a long-term therapy option?
The majority of my clients are long-term clients that are continuously evolving and working on themselves. The above is simply an example for clients that are eager to do quick work.
What if I decide to stop before the 12-13 sessions?
You are in complete control of your sessions and can stop whenever you are ready, no strings attached. You can come back later, if that is something you are interested in, but there is no obligation to do so and you owe us no explanation.
We encourage clients to discuss this with us, if comfortable doing so. This allows both therapist and client to process goodbyes together, learn if there is something we can do differently in the future, and receive clarity about the early ending.
What if my needs change from one session to the next?
I believe that you should set the pace of the work we do and you also determine what we are working on. That means that you dictate the direction of your session from week to week and bring in what is most pressing for you. My job is to assist you on your journey and guide you to make necessary connections, while keeping your larger therapy goals in the background as a steward in our work together.
In-person and remote options in Nevada and California
Our physical office is conveniently located in Bakersfield, CA. Can’t make it into the office? No worries – we’ve got you covered with online therapy in Nevada and California.