Jill is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and Licensed Professional Counselor in private practice in Sandpoint, Idaho. She received her B.A. from the University of California at Santa Barbara, and a Master’s Degree in Counseling Psychology from the University of Oregon in 1981.
After working with adolescents in residential treatment facilities as a clinical staff worker, Activities Director, and Manager, she received intensive training in Structural Family Therapy while working at Lutheran Social Services.
She worked as a School Counselor before joining the staff of Adolescent and Young Adult Medicine in Spokane, which specialized in Eating Disorders. While there, she conducted the therapeutic component of the Inpatient and Intensive Outpatient programs of their Eating Disorders Program at Deaconness Medical Center.
In 1988, she married and moved to Sandpoint, where she opened a private practice. Jill was licensed as a Marriage and Family Therapist in Washington State, and as a Licensed Professional Counselor in Idaho. She became certified in EMDR, a method designed to treat victims of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in 1997.
She began studying the Gottman method in 2000, and after rigorous training, received her certification as a Gottman Couples Therapist in 2005, and has received additional Gottman certifications as a Workshop Leader as well as a Presenter for Level 1 Therapist Trainings.
Several times a year, Jill travels to Seattle to assist John and Julie Gottman as a Roving Therapist at their Art & Science of Love Workshops.
Pursuing her lifelong passion for Dance, she became certified as a NIA instructor in 2005, received Zumba certification in 2009, adding Zumba Toning in 2010. Jill also has been performing individually-created wedding ceremonies since 1996.
She has been happily married for 23 years, and parenting has been her deepest pleasure. Her daughter recently graduated from Whitman College with a degree in Anthropology and is pursuing a Master’s degree in Museum Studies at Columbia University, her elder son is studying Diplomacy and Psychology at Occidental, and her younger son is an Academic Decathalete at Sandpoint High.
Congruent with her belief in seeking balance in mind, body, spirit and emotion, she is also a certified Zumba and NIA instructor and teaches weekly classes. Click here for more information on Zumba. For more information on her work as a Wedding Officiant, click here.
