Meet Jake
I grew up here in Idaho and developed a love of the outdoors from the time I could carry my own backpack. From trips to my family’s cabin in Donnely, Idaho to yearly backpacking treks in the Sawtooth Mountains, I’ve always found the outdoors to be the most healing and peaceful place for me.
I am a Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor with a masters in Marriage and Family Counseling. I have worked with children, adolescents, adults young, and their families in some capacity for the last 15 years. I have worked in a variety of settings including schools, outpatient addiction clinics, private practice, and therapeutic boarding schools. I am a registered supervisor with the state of Idaho and enjoys providing supervision for master’s level clinicians seeking clinical licensure as well as interns working on their LPC or LCPC degrees. I am also trained in brainspotting.
My first degree was in secondary education, and I taught U.S. history and psychology in high school. During this time, I also worked at summer camps as a counselor and as a Resident Director for college students. After a few years of teaching, I went back to school for a Master’s in Marriage and Family Counseling, with an emphasis in trauma and complicated bereavement. In addition to time in private practice, and as a clinical supervisor at an addiction’s clinic, I’ve spent the bulk of my clinical career as a primary therapist at a therapeutic boarding school for adolescent boys. One of the highlights of this work was leading backpacking trips through the Idaho wilderness and therapeutic trips overseas with students and their parents. These trips, through the jungles of Peru and Patagonia, and the streets of Nepal and Israel showed me the true healing power of the wilderness. These adventures and my experiences in therapeutic boarding showed me that things happen in the wilderness that are nearly impossible to mimic anywhere else.
I’m highly interested in personal growth and development both on the individual and family level, and I’m passionate about creatively finding ways to foster the insight required for change to happen. Building quality relationships is important to me and the work I do with clients. For this reason, I approach everything from a deeply relational person-centered perspective, with an emphasis on emotional awareness and connection. I practice EMDR and emphasize mindfulness for clients who have experienced trauma or related issues. I’ve also pursued advanced training in attachment issues, Emotion-Focused Therapy for couples and families, the Community Resiliency Model from the Trauma Resource Institute, and The Anatomy of Peace with the Arbinger Institute.
When I’m not working with students and families in the wilderness, you’ll find me hiking and running in the foothills of Boise, camping and climbing in the backcountry of Idaho, or mountain biking and snowboarding at the various Idaho ski resorts.