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Pink Lotus Flower

JILL PETTEGREW, MFT

Licensed Marriage Family Therapist
Somatic Psychotherapy | Somatic Experiencing® 
Ketamine Therapy
Psychedelic Therapy (Ketamine) and Integration

Mindfulness Meditation

 

Jill Pettegrew, MA, LMFT
Licensed Marriage Family Therapist (LMFT94476)

Jill Pettegrew, LMFT is a psychotherapy practice located in the San Francisco Bay Area. I am dedicated to helping my clients find balance, clarity, and balance in their lives through evidence-based mind-body psychotherapy. My approach combines somatic psychotherapy with the healing tools of Somatic Experiencing®, mindfulness, parts work, and ketamine-assisted psychotherapy.
 

I specialize in helping people with anxiety, depression, PTSD, and other mood-related issues. My goal is to create a safe and comfortable space for my clients to explore and grow.

Reasons to explore therapy at this time in your life include: 

  • Feeling overwhelmed by strong emotions, and/or not able to access emotions

  • Needing to improve communication and/or boundaries

  • Stuck in fight and/or flight trauma states

  • You find yourself dissociating, going into freeze state

  • Needing support in identifying and communicating your needs

  • Wanting healing from traumatic event(s)

  • Relationship challenges

  • Grief, bereavement, or loss

  • Identity/Gender exploration

  • Self-esteem/confidence 

  • Life transition and adjustment

  • Parenting challenges

I am a licensed* Marriage and Family Therapist, with a Master of Arts degree in Counseling Psychology from the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS) in San Francisco, a certificate in Psychedelic-Assisted Therapies and Research from CIIS, and training in ketamine-assisted therapy from Sage Integrative Health. Currently I'm a Somatic Experiencing® Practitioner (SEP) in training, as well as a student in the Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Certification Program with Tara Brach and Jack Kornfield.

My professional training and experience includes over 13 years working with adults, adolescents, and children, as well as parents and others raising children (foster parents, legal guardians).  I bring over 23 years as a somatic practitioner, vipassana (mindfulness) meditator, and earth-based ceremony facilitator to my holistic, integrative practice.

Ready to get started? Call or email to set up your first appointment.

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SERVICES

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INDIVIDUAL THERAPY (AGES 18+)

SOMATIC PSYCHOTHERAPY (Somatic Experiencing®):
Emotions and the accompanying body sensations and thoughts can sometimes be overwhelming and intolerable. This often leads to avoidance, distraction, depression, excessive worry, rage, collapse, relationship difficulties, and when extreme, self-medicating with drugs, alcohol, sex, video games, and other addictive behaviors. When we're activated (triggered), the root cause is usually something from our past: messages from our families or peers that we interpret as being unloveable, too much, that something's wrong with us (shame),  or that our needs cannot be seen and met. We use our minds and body patterns to protect these vulnerable parts of ourselves, resulting in maladaptive patterns of behavior, mood issues, and chronic physical distress.

 

My approach is to identify, build-on, and use your strengths and resources, while also exploring negative patterns that stop you from living a full, integrated life. Together we cultivate your inner wisdom through gentle focused attention and presence (mindfulness), awareness of and building capacity for the somatic (body) sensations response to triggers, and quieting the accompanying internal dialogue. The result is more choice, freedom, and possibility for your life.


Somatic Experiencing® (SE) aims to resolve symptoms of stress, shock, and trauma that accumulate in our bodies. When we are stuck in patterns of fight, flight, or freeze, SE helps us release, recover, and become more resilient. It is a body-oriented therapeutic model for healing trauma and other stress disorders. It is based on a multidisciplinary intersection of physiology, psychology, ethology, biology, neuroscience, indigenous healing practices, and medical biophysics and has been clinically applied for more than four decades. It is the life’s work of Dr. Peter A. Levine.

The SE approach releases traumatic shock, which is key to transforming PTSD and the wounds of emotional and early developmental attachment trauma. It offers a framework to assess where a person is “stuck” in the fight, flight or freeze responses and provides clinical tools to resolve these fixated physiological states.

PSYCHEDELIC THERAPY/KETAMINE-ASSISTED PSYCHOTHERAPY (KAP):

A unique therapeutic method used to address a variety of mental health conditions, including depression, post-traumatic stress, chronic pain, addiction, and some forms of anxiety. It involves the use of the psychoactive substance ketamine to enhance and deepen the therapeutic process, and the use of psychotherapy and other integrative forms of treatment to amplify and prolong the curative effects of ketamine.

PSYCHEDELIC INTEGRATION: An important part of any psychedelic or consciousness-altering experience is the integration of the experience days, weeks, or months afterwards. Engaging in integration during and after a psychedelic experience minimizes the possibility that the healing benefits of the medicine will be buried or lost as ordinary consciousness returns. Together we identify ways to engage with and enhance the experiences, ideas, feelings, and sensations of the experience, and identify practices to includes in daily life to promote healing. 

Home: Contact

WAYS TO CONTACT ME

jillpettegrewmft [at] gmail [dot]com is the fastest way to get in touch with me.

925-308-6168, please leave a detailed message, including your phone number with area code.

To request an appointment for East Bay locations:

Lafayette office (psychotherapy, in-person or video):
3468 Mt. Diablo Blvd. Suite B-201, 

Lafayette, CA 94549

Email me to check availability to inquire about psychotherapy appointments (currently video appointments available, and Thursday afternoons in my Lafayette office ).  
No in-person appointments available at this time.

El Cerrito office (psychotherapy, in-person or video):

Located in private home near Barrett Ave and Arlington Blvd. Address provided when appointment confirmed

Email me to check availability to inquire about psychotherapy appointments (currently video appointments available, and Tuesdays in my El Cerrito office ). 
In-person and video appointments available.

Berkeley office (ketamine-assisted therapy, Sage Integrative Health): 

Sage Integrative Health

2185 Ashby Avenue, Berkeley, CA, 94705

Use this link to contact Sage Integrative Health directly to request an appointment through the clinic's practice (current openings for ketamine-assisted therapy). 
In-person appointments available for ketamine-assisted therapy.

(*Licensed requirements = 3000 hours of post-graduate supervised training, passing two California State board exams by the California Board of Behavioral Sciences (BBS), and background checks by the State of California Department of Justice. Licensure includes being held legally and ethically responsible by the BBS for maintaining a strict code of ethics in the field of psychotherapy, abiding by the laws of the State of California, and obtaining continuing education credits to support professional development. My license can be confirmed by clicking this link to the California Department of Consumer Affairs website.)

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