We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Jennie Pool. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Jennie below.

Alright, Jennie thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Can you recount a time when the advice you provided to a client was really spot on? (Please note this response is for education/entertainment purposes only and shouldn’t be construed as advice for the reader)

The body is an intuitive vessel, it is inherently designed to heal in all ways. Decompressing and healing the nervous system is key to helping the mental, emotional, and physical body unwind and find equilibrium/balance. Somatic therapeutic work is the doorway to allowing the body to self heal and untangle from past psychic debris that can bog a person down and manifest in various forms like anxiety, depression, trauma, etc. Our collective bodies want peace and calm and when we open up to doorways through somatics for the body to heal itself it will begin to do so effectively.

Jennie, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I knew when I took my first psychology class in college that I wanted to dive into this profession. I wanted to work with people who have had trauma and knew there were more effective ways to help them heal than talk therapy alone. I studied the body and structural bodywork while I was finishing my schooling for becoming a mental health therapist because even back then I knew there would be a day where somatic bodywork and somatic healing tools would be what would help heal trauma deeply and effectively and help people reclaim safety and calm back into their collective bodies. I worked with various programs and continue to dive into learning more about somatic work and how to help people truly heal from past traumas and not be continually plagued by past memories of this. I eventually started my own private practice which filled up quickly because I was using the somatic tools and brainspotting (which is similar to EMDR) to help people more quickly regain equilibrium and safety in their mind and body. I was so busy that I wanted to help more people and decided to build a group practice that is called MEND Counseling Center where I train other therapists to learn somatic tools so they can as well use these tools to help clients heal. I am also in a year long training for psychedelic assisted therapy used carefully to help clients take a deeper dive into their psyche to discover what can be healed, repaired, or better understood about their lives. There is a lot of work being one to legalize these therapeutic plant medicines and I am a part of a training of people from around the world preparing for when it does. Somatic work will be a fundamental part of this type of therapy. I also use vibroacoustic sound therapy which helps to decompress the nervous system in about 20-30 min, this is such an less known but effective form of somatic therapy that help clients decompress.

Putting training and knowledge aside, what else do you think really matters in terms of succeeding in your field?

Being able to build rapport and connection with people is so imperative in this field. Attunement, helping clients feel seen, heard, validated and understood, and holding space so clients feel safe to share their vulnerabilities and challenges with a therapist becomes a sacred space that needs to be treated as so.

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

My skill and ability helping clients with trauma and being able to uniquely use somatic therapy tools to help each of them. Also my ability to connect with my clients helped me grow a huge base of referrals because of my clients experience with me.

Contact Info:

• Website: mendcounselingcenter.com
• Instagram: mendcounselingcenter and Jennie_pool
• Facebook: MEND Counseling Center