20% of Americans are experiencing some form of mental illness. In today’s world, mental health counseling services and resources are luckily vast, but for an individual suffering and looking to heal, it can feel overwhelming to start that journey. Jennifer Martin Rieck is a Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor and the owner of Epijennetics Counseling & Consulting in Libertyville, Illinois. While Jennifer believes talk therapy can help most people, it can also feel like a revolving door that doesn’t offer a full enough picture of the individual. Through her practice and informative website, Jennifer utilizes Schema therapy, among other modalities, to offer understanding and sustainable healing to as many people as possible.
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When we are kids, experiences are etched within us, whether healthy or not. To combat mental illnesses and heal trauma from those more negative experiences, we must first gain a full understanding of our past and the impact that it plays in our emotional responses.
Schema therapy is a form of mental health counseling that tackles deep-rooted patterns by addressing unmet emotional needs and unhelpful thinking styles. The modality was developed by Jeffrey Young in 1990, and is an integrative treatment approach combining cognitive, behavioral, object relations, gestalt, constructivism, attachment models, and psychoanalysis (Young, Klosko, & Weishaar, 2003).
Jennifer Martin Rieck is a Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor and the owner of Epijennetics Counseling & Consulting in Libertyville, Illinois, who utilizes Schema therapy to help her patients understand their traumas and the impact that it has on their anxiety, and depression symptoms.
Epijennetics Counseling was inspired by the science of Epigenetics, which is the study of how your behaviors and environment can cause changes that affect the way your genes work, without altering actual DNA itself. Jennifer’s work has never been more integral. In America alone, mental illness is an epidemic that is constantly growing. It’s experts like Jennifer that work everyday to help as many people as possible heal and grow into the best version of themselves.
According to Mental Health America, mental illness is a growing concern with nearly 20% of the population experiencing mental illness – nearly 50 million Americans.
Jennifer got started in the mental health field after experiencing what counseling could do for her and healing her own personal struggles.
“My relationship with this field began when I was receiving counseling myself years ago. Being in that space for the first time, I found myself discovering words and terms that described my own experiences that I never knew existed before. I was able to understand my own story and family, which was not only super interesting, but helpful.
Throughout my life, I’ve had multiple relationships with people with personality disorders. My dad, best friend, and previous husband all were dealing with their own specific disorders, and I cared for all of them deeply, so more than anything I just wanted to understand.
To be honest, I just went for it and decided to go back to school to get my Master’s Degree in mental health counseling.”
As she began her journey into the counseling world, one of the main things she wanted to gain was an understanding of the opposite of narcissism. At the time in which Jennifer was learning about narcissism through her own experience, research, and education, there was an influx of published research on the subject matter.
Most of the information, however, all concluded the same sort of solution for individuals who have narcissists in their life; cut them out.
“That isn’t always possible, and life isn’t that simple. Whether it’s a parent, partner, or co-parent, many people can’t just cut someone out of their life completely and permanently.
I started thinking about individuals who seek counseling to gain an understanding of narcissism. Those individuals aren’t the ones who are narcissistic themselves, but instead have loved ones with narcissistic characteristics and they want to understand how to deal with those relationships. How can they be different to stop ending up in those relationships? How can they be healthier in those relationships? How can they ensure they’re protecting their own well being?
It was around that time that I really wanted to explore a multitude of counseling methods to see if there were solid answers for those very valid questions.
There didn’t seem to be a straight answer when it came to my questions. There was some talk about codependency, but overall none of the explanations fit with my experiences. The people I knew in these relationships were not weak or needy, but strong, independent, empathetic, and caring people, and I couldn’t find a word for it.
Then I learned about Schema Therapy.
I recall meeting with the head of the counseling department in grad school. I told her I was frustrated because I was being asked to write a paper that would ground me in a specific counseling theory, and none of the theories that I learned about made sense of what I was trying to understand regarding narcissism and the relationships surrounding it.
I explained how each theory definitely held a piece of the picture I had in my head, but none of them were all encompassing when it came to what I was looking for regarding personality disorders and the relationships difficulties I was witnessing.
Then she told me what I was looking for was called Schema Therapy, something that we were never taught throughout grad school. She directed me to a manual regarding this methodology and it immediately was exactly what I was looking for.
It made sense of the personality disorders, the individuals who end up in relationships with narcissists, and everything else I was looking for clarity on based on my own experiences and goals in the counseling field. It was also quite a bit more directive than traditional talk therapy in the sense that you are really focused on doing work to heal schemas and not simply processing feelings.
In terms of the individuals who get into relationships with people who don’t meet their needs and often emotionally harm them, they would score as ‘self-sacrificing’ on the Schema inventory (more on that later). I then began to realize, especially as I worked more and more as a counselor, that a majority of people who seek out counseling are scoring high in self-sacrificing schema.
These individuals are super empathetic but struggle to marry that empathy to boundaries and accountability due to guilt.
They care a lot about feelings and relationships, and just want to understand and improve themselves and their connections with the people around them. Once I made those connections, Schema therapy just fit into my work organically.”
“‘Schemas’ are thought to be pervasive and enduring beliefs about oneself and others, particularly in the realm of relationships. Often these schemas or beliefs were formed early in life as a result of things that occurred in one’s family of origin. The Schema Scale encompasses 18 general schemas that people experience, and it’s often more than just one.”
“For example, if you are a person who grew up in a home where your parents were busy and unconcerned with your feelings, then perhaps you came to believe that the right way to be in a relationship with others is to not need anything. If this happened regularly and that belief became one of your core schemas then as an adult you are likely to expect that this is the truth of all relationships.
The idea behind Schema Therapy is to discover the core schemas that may be at the root of some of the problems that you are experiencing. Because schemas form early in life, and individuals aren’t even typically aware that they are there, it can take some time to uncover just what belief is really underneath their struggles. This is why the Schema assessment is so crucial to complete early in therapy so we can get right to the heart of the issue.
Sometimes it takes really dissecting a series of relationships to see that at the core of the problem is a schema that they have unknowingly been dragging around since childhood.”
If an individual can uncover what belief is really perpetuating the behaviors that land them in such unsatisfying circumstances or relationships, then they can begin to develop a plan for change. Understanding your schemas and bringing them to the forefront of your focus could be the key to gaining the life and relationships that you desire.”
“With my counseling work, I aim to focus on identifying, changing, and healing the schemas. Working to help people understand what’s healthy versus unhealthy in their life and creating a plan to get them on a path towards the healthy.”
Schema therapy itself is a combination of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, GESTALT AND PSYCHOANALYSIS, so naturally Epijennetics Counseling and Consulting fully offers an integrative approach to therapy, combining evidenced based techniques from Schema Therapy along with Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and Internal Family System therapy.
Epijennetics Counseling offers this variety of counseling options for adolescents and adults, including individuals, couples, and family counseling, as well as consulting services for non-clinical work.
“Every counseling theory and practice holds some important truth and has validity. To me, I think of them as all one thing, we’re all complex human beings, so all of those methodologies make sense for a certain aspect of our life.
In the Internal Family System work, in order to heal schemas, you really need to go back to that childhood version of yourself and give them compassion. Utilizing the multitude of methodologies that schema therapy pulls from, one can identify and, ideally, work through trauma while giving ourselves grace to heal.
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy is all about really embracing our feelings and not judging them. Accepting our emotions/emotional responses, letting ourselves feel them in their entirety, and not avoiding them.
In my work and on my journey within the counseling profession, I’ve always wondered why we as humans place so much judgment on our own feelings and the emotional reactions we have to major life moments and/or traumas. There’s really no reason to, but it’s unfortunately a very relatable experience. It’s my job to help people accept those feelings, and to accept the schemas that led them to those emotions.”
The initial consultation meetings at Epijennetics Counseling are integral for the overall counseling process. Jennifer explained that when she’s working with a new individual for the first time, she embraces a very structured process before creating a more specific plan for them and their particular needs.
The first time she meets with someone she’ll have them fill out a standard intake form to get a sense of the specific symptoms they’re experiencing, as well as assessments for depression and anxiety. From these forms she’s able to get a numerical value for where the person is starting out.
This number reflects the levels of anxiety and depression the individual is experiencing on paper, giving Jennifer a starting point to help her figure out what steps need to happen immediately, such as medication, and what can be further delved into and worked on throughout the counseling process. It lays out the priorities early on, gives her the information needed to provide a diagnosis if one has never been given to them previously, and gives Jennifer the initial information needed to create a plan that will work for that person’s individual needs.
“There’s a lot of cases where I’ll start seeing a new client who thinks they’re suffering from severe anxiety and maybe just moderate depression when it can be the complete opposite. So the initial intake consultations are also important for identifying and educating the individual so they have a clearer picture of what’s happening to them, particularly with their emotional responses.”
The initial process also involves a structured intake interview in which Jennifer utilizes a 10-page document that encompasses everything she’ll need to know to help the person grow. The questions cover family relationships, trauma experiences, medications, education, career goals, spirituality, and more.
Jennifer then sends the patient home with a schema assessment, to allow them to take their time filling it out, as the details are integral to their healing.
“Once I’m able to provide a patient with their schema scores, it gives me a clearer understanding of what the therapy for that particular person needs to look like and what kind of role I, as the therapist, need to play. As we continue to work together I’m able to help them make sense of the schemas they’re experiencing.
Typically we tend to reinforce our schemas over and over again. We’re used to having certain responses to certain situations or feelings that are common for us, so we hold onto those reactions when they can be hurting us in the long run. Before we can break that pattern we need to be able to identify it for what it is, and why it happens.
In order to help people fully love themselves, you need to help them fully understand themselves first.
It’s so easy for us to just accept our faults or negative feelings as an integral piece of who we are when that’s not the case. We need to see the full picture of ourselves in order to see a clear path to healing, and to accept that suffering does not need to be a permanent part of lives.
I feel like I do a lot of talking the first couple of weeks I work with a new patient but the education aspect of this modality of counseling is so important. You can’t solve a problem without first understanding it, and you can’t work through trauma, anxiety, depression, etc. without first understanding why and how it’s existing and impacting us in the first place.
From there we can then work together through typically traditional talk-therapy, and even when we talk about something that may have happened that week that’s been negatively impacting the individual, we can likely still relate it back to their specific schema and why they’re having the emotional response that they are. Then of course we can work on how to get through those negative feelings and responses, and move towards healing and how to stop reinforcing our schemas.
A lot of individuals who experience trauma spend their time in more traditional therapies just talking about that trauma, and thus, reliving it to an extent. While it is important to discuss our honest feelings about our traumas, we also need to see at least some semblance of a path towards healing and resolving the struggle.
Schema gives us that ability. We focus on how those traumas impact the way we feel and react today, with the understanding of why that is based on the past.”
Jennifer’s ability to show her patients a full idealized picture of who they are, and the pieces that make them whole, is a gift that helps individuals see that their traumas, anxieties, depression, and other negative reactions do not make them who they are.
Epijennetics Counseling holds the belief that mental health counseling should be a holistic approach that doesn’t simply treat mental health symptoms but assists clients in better understanding their values and priorities, finding meaning, and building a healthy and hopeful future.
Epijennetics Counseling’s website is an amazing resource for anyone who’s struggling as well. Jennifer made it a point to fill her site with as much information as possible, so that anyone in the world seeking some answers or clarity can find it. She explained that this was a really important aspect when it came to building her practice. When she was in graduate school, she couldn’t find any information that would help answer her questions. So she wanted to create a hub of useful tools and resources that anyone can access, including blog posts, podcast episodes, newsletters, listicles, and more!
“I wanted to fill the website with content that people may have never known about if it wasn’t presented to them. I promote a lot of pieces of it around the world to give as many people as possible access to information that can be life changing for them. I’m so grateful and excited to see that it is utilized consistently, and is leading towards a greater understanding for people who may have just accepted the negatives in their lives as normal.”
Jennifer also provides consulting services through her practice, something that she says is not only beneficial to the individual, but herself. In today’s world, the mental health counseling field is vast, which is a good thing, but it can be overwhelming for one person seeking answers/help to determine what would work best for them. With so much information out there, Jennifer wanted to try to bridge a lot of the gaps in the mental health field, and provide a space where professionals and patients can learn and grow from each other.
“Engaging regularly with a professional is an intentional and proactive way to improve quality of life, relationships, and reduce stress. Sessions can be utilized to provide accountability for goals ranging from weight loss or lifestyle changes to goals related to career, relationships, or spirituality. Consulting sessions can provide personal insight and emotional support and can even inspire personal growth that individuals don’t even recognize is needed.”
Looking towards the future, Jennifer is excited to continue the amazing work she does helping people understand themselves and find their path to healing.
Additionally, she’s hoping to write and publish a book. She’s published multiple articles and blog posts on her website, and is hoping that once she writes a total of 52 articles, she can compile them in a book to give readers one article a week with prompts and actions for the reader to engage with at the end of each.
“I honestly believe if people take their mental health journey step-by-step and with an intent to grow, their lives will be vastly different. So the goal with the book will be to give them a structure to work off of to take those steps.
My goal in general is to get as much of this information possible out into the world so it can help anyone seeking it, and I’ll do that by any means necessary. I’ve felt the power of healing and seen it happen for countless others, everyone deserves the opportunity to see themselves in their entirety, and gain the understanding of how to overcome what’s holding them back,” Jennifer concluded.
To learn more about the amazing work Jennifer Martin Rieck does through Epijennetics Counseling & Consulting: Libertyville Mental Health Service, check out her website, services, newsletters, and more by clicking here!
Eric Mastrota is a Contributing Editor at The National Digest based in New York. A graduate of SUNY New Paltz, he reports on world news, culture, and lifestyle. You can reach him at eric.mastrota@thenationaldigest.com.
