About Jeffrey Kent

Marriage & Family Therapist, MA, LMFT

Jeffrey Kent is a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist with over 30 years of experience working with adolescents, adults and families. He specializes in grief, loss, and addiction. His work is informed largely by the death of his younger brother to heroin addiction and his sister-in-law to her suicide. He works with a highly skilled and compassionate group of therapists who use Motivational Enhancement Therapy (MET), Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), and Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), as their treatment modalities. He conducts relapse prevention workshops and leads a weekly group for families of those affected by this insidious disease.

Philosophy

Happiness, satisfaction, meaning, purpose…

These are just words until we decide they are important and, perhaps, possible. Most of us have constructed lives that know others’ approval, but not our own. As Alice Miller reflects, “The love I gained with such uphill effort and self defacement was not meant for me at all but for the me I created to please them…”

I will help you explore the difference between “self actualization,” a term coined by Abraham Maslow, and “self-image actualization.” The first is a path of depth, authenticity, and aliveness, while the second can lead to depression, even despair.

Therapy is a way to connect with those parts of ourselves that may have been sacrificed for a vague promise of “something better.” I treat anxiety, depression, trauma and addiction; these are often intertwined. I work with individuals, couples, families, and adolescents – anyone and their families who may be struggling with anxiety, depression, addiction, grief and loss.