About Jennifer Campoy, LCSW

About Jennifer Campoy, LCSW

I love what I do because it allows me to combine my life experience with my fascination with the human condition in order to help people make the most of their lives. And in order to expand & grow, we need support and sometimes an objective eye (ie, a therapist).

I like to help people look at how they were raised, what they got and didn’t get, and how their sense of self was shaped. I want to pull the curtain back and look at how the foundation was set … and dig deep to fix the plumbing … so whatever growth you make in therapy is durable and not just temporary. We’ll look at your expectations in relationships, we’ll likely catch some automatic negative thinking that has deep roots, and we’ll talk about experiences that perhaps have never been really heard, validated and understood.

People I work with want to feel more confident, self-assured, not look to others so much for validation.

They ask me why they often feel like a young child, getting frustrated at small things and easily disappointed when others aren’t there for them enough.

Or they can’t understand why their anxiety & constant mind-chatter is not soothed with “coping skills” like breathing, meditation or positive self-talk.

Or they want to set better boundaries with others and ask for what they need without feeling guilty or “too much”.

My goal is to help you have an integrated sense of self. And if you feel that your sense of self has been trampled on or is undeveloped, we talk about how to nurture it. How to understand its needs and desires. How to re-discover & develop internal resources to deal with challenges. And how to understand its true identity.

Because we are always engaging in a continual ebbing & flowing – of giving & receiving, grasping & letting go, and working on what we can change and let go of what cannot or will not change – it’s important for us to be flexible. Think of how empowered you feel when your body is flexible – after yoga or a good long run … loose, adaptable, free, resilient … the mind works that way too. But this is not easy if you don’t have a reserve of experiences to draw from (self-soothing, daily habits, frustration tolerance, resilience, stick-to-it-ive-ness, a fundamental sense that “I can do this!”) because of neglect or a lack of good modeling. So these experiences need to be processed in order for us to dream and execute plans all at the same time.

Professional and Educational Background

I’ve been working with people in a variety of clinical settings for close to 30 years – in treatment centers with kids & families and private practice with adults.

A few years ago, I found that I wanted to understand people better and help people make more lasting change. As a result, I enrolled to be a candidate at LAISPS to be a psychoanalyst. This involves coursework, infant observation, control cases, and my own analysis. Having my own analysis (four times a week for several years!) is what helps me understand myself better, know my unconscious mind (as much as possible), and ultimately be more accepting of who I am. I want others to experience the same self-assurance.

I will not claim to know you better than you know yourself – only facilitate a process in which you discover yourself on a deeper level.

Additionally I work with teens and families at a treatment center. I love working with teenagers because #1, it’s a pivotal stage in life where identity is really getting solidified and #2 they tell it like it is. They don’t bullshit us and tell us it’s fine when it isn’t. How did adults get so conditioned to lie to one another just to avoid discomfort?!

And I work with the families of these teens because I know the importance of family support and for kids to get parents to listen and understand them.

Education

Masters in Social Work, Columbia University

Bachelors of Art in Psychology, St. Mary’s College

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