Theoretical Background and Training

Therapeutic frameworks are not dogma, universal truths, or rigid scripts designed to force compliance; they are specialized lenses for understanding human experience, relational patterns, and systemic stress. No single theory holds a monopoly on healing, and applying an off-the-shelf modality to complex human life often does more harm than good.

In our work, we draw from critical, relational, somatic, and behavioral traditions to build an approach tailored to your actual lived environment. Rather than forcing your reality into a pre-packaged treatment manual, we treat therapeutic models as flexible toolkits used in service of your autonomy, agency, and self-determination.

Below are the primary theoretical orientations and frameworks integrated throughout our practice:

Critical & Theoretical Frameworks

These theories are about people as they exist inside the social world we live in from each grouop's perspective. Narrative theory is adapted for working with all populations. You can learn more about the driving framework behind all of these theories, Intersectionality, on the main hub for critical frameworks. 

I am trained in: Narrative Therapy, Schizoanalysis, Crip Theory, Queer Theory, Embodiment & Feminist Theory, Human Development, Intense World Theory

Relational & Sytems

These theories help to understand a person as they exist inside themselves and within their external environment including culture, family systems, group based interactions, and social systems. 

I am trained in: Systems Theory ,RCT Relational Cultural Theory, Family Systems Theory, IPNB Interpersonal Neurobiological Theory, IFS Internal Family Systems, Group Dynamics

Psychodynamic & Experiential

Root-level emotional transformation. It answers: "What implicit emotional learnings or unconscious templates need to be felt, updated, and reprocessed?"

I am trained in: AEDP Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy, Coherence Therapy, Schema Therapy, Psychoanalysis, Object Relations, Somatic , Experiental / Exposure Reponse Therapy

Person Centered & Existential

Root-level emotional transformation. It answers: "What implicit emotional learnings or unconscious templates need to be felt, updated, and reprocessed?"

I am trained in: Existential Therapy, PCPT Person-Centered Play Therapy, PCT Person-Centered Therapy, Gestalt Therapy, Philosophical Therapy, 

Cognitive & Behavioral

Relational presence and meaning. It answers: "How do we cultivate unconditional safety, authentic presence, and meaning in the present moment?"

I am trained in: Cognitivism,  Behaviorism, ACT Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, REBT Rational Emotive Behavioral Theory, DBT Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, CBT Cognitive Behavioral Theory, MI Motivational Interviewing, SFBT Solutions Focused Brief Therapy, ABA Applied Behavioral Analysis, CBIT Comprehensive Behavioral Intervention for Tics 

Evidence-Based & Integrative Modalities

Therapy is not a one-size-fits-all process. Different nervous systems and life experiences require different tools. I draw from a broad range of evidence-based, relational, and theoretical frameworks to tailor care directly to your goals and needs.

Theoretical & Practice Background:

Jace specializes in the clinical intersection of neurodevelopmental conditions (Tourette's, ADHD, Autism, OCD) and complex trauma. I enjoy working with clients who experience intense, dysregulating internal pressure. I use an integrated somatic, behavioral, and relational approach to help them navigate those intense somatic and cognitive urges. We focus heavily on moving away from behavioral compliance and instead working toward client agency and long-term self-advocacy

I was trained as a generalist social worker at Boise State, which means my education was not limited to one population, diagnosis, or method. My education and experience have included individuals, families, relationships of all forms, communities, policy, sexual violence, physical and invisible disability access, systems, institutions, developmental concerns, regulation, and urge and movement disorders, and the material circumstances that shape people's lives. My father is also a Boise State social worker, so social work has become something of a family lineage for me.

More broadly, I have spent much of my life being cared for by people working within our community's systems of care. My father, my family, and I have relationships with people across those systems, and you may be one of those people. I am very thankful for the role you play within that larger lineage of care, whether we have known each other directly or not.

I don't think care happens in isolation or belongs to any one profession. It happens through relationships between people, families, providers, schools, agencies, institutions, courts, and communities. I think it is through relationships that we heal as humans and it is through relationships we know each other. I may not know people who need help directly, but perhaps you know people who do, and I would appreciate you passing that along.

I have particular experience in working with people whose lives involve courts, culture, disability, military, neurodevelopmental differences, pain, poverty, regulation difficulties, sex, sexual violence, urge and movement disorders, or being a young adult; and the ways these experiences affect relationships, school, work, family life, and everyday functioning.

 I am interested not only in what a person is experiencing internally, but in how the people and systems around them respond to it.

LANGUAGE HEAVILY DETERMINES ACCESSIBLITY

The information above is written in a technical format specifically to guide folx in the know. The average person does not understand complex psychology theories and does not get there through dense medical jargon, complicated clinical phrasing, and academic labels. A clinician who understands their modalities and theories does not need to use high level clinical language and can instead engage clients directly where they are at by speaking plainly, directly, and at an accessible, everyday reading level. Take that into consideration when translating any information to potential clients of therapists. If you choose to click on these tabs, know that they are written in such a way they are self contained and explanatory. 

A Note About Introducing Perspectives

Because I work from a broad systemic and philosophical perspective, I may sometimes introduce ideas from religions, spiritual traditions, philosophical traditions, cultures, or ways of understanding human experience I have been exposed to that are different from the ones you already know.

When I do this, the purpose is to expand the frame, not to tell you what to believe.

Sometimes another tradition provides language for an experience that a person has struggled to describe. Sometimes it offers a different way of understanding a relationship, a value, a conflict, suffering, identity, or a life transition. Sometimes encountering a different perspective simply makes it easier to see what you already believe more clearly.

I will distinguish between offering a perspective and asking you to adopt it. You are free to reject an idea, disagree with it, or decide that it does not fit your experience.

The point is not to make your worldview more like mine. The point is to give you more ways to think with.