Coming Home to Your Aliveness & Belonging.

About

Jen Skees, she/her/they/them

Welcome! I’m glad you’re here.

I am a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSWA) who has been working at the intersection of social movement work and mental health for over 18 years.

I graduated with my Masters in Social Work in Human Rights and Social Justice from Fordham University in 2011.

My work is dedicated to supporting you in returning to your inherent vitality through somatic practices, self-awareness, and connection.

My hope is that our work together guides you back to your embodied presence and worthiness. That it supports you in being in nurturing relationship with yourself and your community. I am committed to holding a container for this transformative practice and supporting you in reclaiming your birthright to vitality and belonging.

Therapy

I implement an integrative approach to therapy, drawing from multiple modalities and healing traditions to serve your whole person. Some modalities include my background and training in: generative somatics, polarity therapy, therapeutic touch, somatic experiencing, psychodynamic therapy, yoga, CBT, DBT, motivational interviewing, mindfulness-based-stress reduction and meditation.

My work is grounded in a radical love ethic in which human dignity is honored. Bringing warmth and curiosity to my therapeutic relationships, I utilize a client centered approach in which I trust in your innate capacity for healing. My approach is collaborative and tailored to each person. Many clients relay that I am accepting and encouraging while also being gently challenging and direct.

Sessions can involve talk therapy, mindfulness and somatic practices, and therapeutic touch. Various modalities are used to support you in expanding your personal awareness, transforming stuck patterns, developing your boundaries and healthy pacing, and ultimately living with more ease. 

Values

I identify as a sex positive, queer and trans affirming, anti-racist, and anti-oppressive therapist. I approach this work with humility and devotion to being a lifelong student of racial and gender equity.

I see the personal and the collective as deeply interconnected. Systems of oppression rely on severing our connections with our bodies, ourselves, and one another. Reconnecting with our bodies, re-learning how to connect with people and planet, and slowing down are a few essential components to dismantling systems of supremacy and moving towards liberation.

I was born into a Southern family of farmers, teachers, and radical Catholic nuns spanning central and rural Kentucky. As a teenager, I engaged in queer and feminist anti racist organizing and advocated for mental health supports for young people. In past lives, I nannied, taught, doula-d and studied printmaking. For a little over a decade, I provided mental health services and advocated alongside refugees and survivors of trauma and war recently resettled in the Triangle, NYC & New Jersey. I also co-created and directed a community solidarity hub in the Triangle.

In my free time, you'll find me trying my hand at building a tiny home, doodling, sharing stories and meals with loved ones, or planting myself in a body of water.

Areas of Interest

People I Often Work With:

  • People seeking deeper connection & pleasure

  • People experiencing communication & relational challenges

  • People Seeking direction and clarity

  • LGBTQIA + folks

  • People exploring identity (sense of self, gender, sexuality)

  • People who are survivors of trauma

  • Care Workers, Healers, and Cultural Workers

  • Social Justice Advocates & Organizers

  • People experiencing caregiver fatigue or work exhaustion

  • Folks with chronic pain and illness

  • Artists & Creators

  • People engaging in career & education exploration

  • People experiencing family issues (connecting with family, infertility, new parenthood, co-parenting needs)

  • People seeking emotional awareness & regulation

Areas of Interest & Expertise:

  • Somatics

  • Life Transitions

  • Trauma

  • Empowered Relationships & Relational Issues

  • Pleasure

  • LGBTQ+

  • Gender & Sexuality exploration

  • Chronic Pain & Autoimune Disease

  • Grief & Loss

  • Anxiety & Stress

  • Depression

  • Boundary Setting

  • Identity & Self Esteem

  • Perfectionism & Hyper-performance

  • Compassion & Caregiver Fatigue

  • Psychological & Somatic distress related to systems of oppression & marginalization

What to expect from somatic therapy & sessions together:

  • growing your window of presence

  • enhancing communication skills

  • further understanding your body responses and conditioned tendencies in order to respond and move through challenges with more agency and ease

  • growing awareness of and integrating unresolved trauma and life stressors, in turn, shifting old patterns and living with more freedom

  • developing tools to co-regulate and soothe your nervous system

  • transforming stuck patterns

  • developing personal awareness and loving boundaries

  • gaining confidence and clarity in decision making

  • feeling more connected and grounded

  • experiencing greater ease in relationship with yourself and others

Appointments & Fees

I see clients in my office in Durham and virtually via a HIPPA compliant platform. I offer individual, couples, and somatic touch therapy sessions. In addition, I offer group therapy and organizational coaching support.

Accessibility

In my commitment to making mental health services accessible, I hold several slots in my caseload for sliding scale fees. If you’re from an owning or middle class background, you paying the full fee makes affordable care possible for someone else.

Please reach out to me if you’re concerned about being able to pay full fee. If my sliding scale slots are full, I can share a list of clinicians who are offering accessible care.

Insurance

I am out of network with insurance providers. However, I can provide you with a monthly superbill for you to submit to insurer for partial out of network reimbursement.

Couples, Group & Organizational Sessions

50 mins I $195

Initial 60 minute intake session |  $220

please reach out about longer session rates and your specific group or couple needs

Individual Therapy & Therapeutic Touch Sessions

50 mins I $165

Initial 60 minute intake session |  $200

please reach out about longer session rates and somatic touch work 

“Rarely, if ever, are any of us healed in isolation. Healing is an act of communion.”   
-bell hooks

Connect

If you’re interested in working together, please reach out me via email at jen@jenskees.com

I offer a free 15-minute phone consultation to see if we’re a good match before our first appointment.

Please allow two business days for a response to emails. Looking forward to connecting with you.