About Dr. Julia Smith, LPCC, NCC
“Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.”
- Carl Jung
Expertise for well-being & self-development
As a Psychotherapist, Consultant, and Life Coach, I provide the knowledge and skills to assist in resolving your concerns. In working with individual adults to gain resolution, I also support your authenticity with the well-being and relationship health it strengthens.
I have proven expertise in working with anxiety, depression, ADHD, personal development, and autism spectrum disorder. In addition, I work with relationship concerns, grief, loss, and adjustment issues. The scope of my professional background contributes to my skill and covers community counseling, private practice, intensive outpatient hospitalization, military settings, and residential treatment.
My history includes serving on university faculties in the capacities of Assistant Professor of Counseling and Adjunct teaching. During my years in higher education, I launched qualitative research to explore autonomy. Long understood as a natural drive and an important dynamic for identity development, autonomy is defined as the personal agency to act on your own feelings, needs, values, and decisions with a spirit of love and cooperation. My research illustrated its association with self-leadership, empathy, and the demonstrated skills for emotional intimacy, as well as an interdependent approach to relating. In addition to showing dynamics that characterize autonomy, results also provide data that indicate the significance of the relationship context for nurturing it.
Based on my experience, knowledge, and skill, I approach therapy by working together to create a supportive climate. With a psychodynamic orientation, I integrate an attachment and systems informed perspective for resolution and greater well-being. I also incorporate my certification as a Mindfulness Informed Professional.
While teaching as an Assistant Professor in New Mexico, I discovered my affinity for sculpting stone. Although my process of becoming a sculptor is gradual, carving stone has been instrumental in connecting concepts with practice for self-development. Carl Jung’s contributions to the field of psychology reflect this experience, particularly in his awareness of our connection with the Divine and the identification of stones as symbols of the Self. My process of sculpting incorporates this symbolism. Just as there is a form within stones to unearth, we each have a Self to bring to light. In a context where there is love and cooperation, a sacredness exists in which the soulful song of each voice is heard and valued.
For questions, please feel free to contact me by clicking the following button:
Associations:
Certified Mindfulness Informed Professional
Member: National Board for Certified Counselors, # 85377
Board Member: C G Jung Society of St. Louis
License Numbers:
California, USA, LPCC 10570
Michigan, USA, LPC 6401020312
