Different jobs, same dynamic. Different partners, same fight. Different year, same version of yourself you keep promising to leave behind. There's usually a pattern underneath — and most of the time, it's running you, not the other way around.
01 — Welcome
I'm Jacob. I'm a Licensed Associate Marriage and Family Therapist, and I do insight-oriented psychotherapy — which is a slightly old-school way of saying we don't just manage what you're dealing with. We try to understand it. Where it came from. Why it has the grip it has. What it's been protecting you from, or pointing you toward, all this time.
Most of the people I work with are competent. They've done the reading. They can describe their own patterns in conversation. What they can't do is stop running them. That's not a willpower problem — that's a depth-of-understanding problem. And it's the one thing this kind of work is actually built for.
More about me
02 — Who this is for
You're not in freefall. From the outside you're doing fine — maybe more than fine. But something keeps happening that you swore wouldn't happen again. You picked another partner who feels the way the last one felt. You're underperforming in a job that should be well within reach. You keep flinching at the same conversation. You can see the loop — you just can't seem to step out of it.
A lot of people in this spot have already tried to read or strategize their way through it. They know the language — boundaries, attachment style, fight-or-flight, inner critic. They can name their patterns at a dinner party. None of that is wrong, exactly. But naming a pattern isn't the same as understanding what it's doing for you. And until you understand what it's for, it's not going anywhere.
If you've read the books, kept the journals, done the reps, and you're still ending up in the same place — that's the spot where this kind of work actually starts to be useful.
Book a free consultation03 — What we work on
Different person, same dynamic. You can usually see it by the second or third time — the same kind of chase, the same kind of withdrawal, the same fight from a different angle. We get curious about what keeps drawing you toward what feels familiar.
You're capable of more than you're delivering and you know it. There's a ceiling you keep hitting that doesn't seem to be about skill. We slow down and look at what's actually under it — not to motivate you, but to understand what's been keeping the lid on.
From the outside you're still handling it. Underneath, something's gone flat — or wired too tight. We get curious about what's actually driving the engine, so change stops being another reset you have to white-knuckle.
Read moreYou've been circling something for a while — leaving a job, ending a relationship, starting something new — and you can't tell anymore whether the hesitation is wisdom or fear. We sit with both, slowly enough to actually hear which one is talking.
You built the life that was supposed to feel like the answer, and a quiet question keeps surfacing underneath it. We listen to what the restlessness is actually pointing at — and trust there's usually a knowing under there worth hearing again.
Read moreWhatever the symptom is on the surface, we won't just manage it. We get to know the parts of you holding the fear, the heaviness, the exhaustion — and gently uncover what they've been doing for you all along.
04 — Investment
Per 50-min session
$80
Private pay · No insurance billing
Cost shouldn't be the thing that keeps you out of the room. Sliding scale options are available — just bring it up on our free consultation call and we'll figure something out together.
Schedule a free 15-min callYou're not broken. You're repeating. Somewhere along the way you learned a script for how to be safe, how to be loved, how to be enough — and you're still running it, long after it stopped being the right one. The work is finally getting a good look at it.
05 — The next step
A free 15-minute consultation is how we start. No pressure, no commitment — just a chance to see if we're a fit. In-person Mondays in East Falls, Philadelphia; virtual sessions across Pennsylvania.