Cliff Jackson, LAPC

Theoretical Orientation

My approach to therapy is an integrative one, and I primarily resonate with the tenets of Interpersonal Process Therapy (IPT). IPT stems from psychodynamic and cognitive-behavioral therapy perspectives and focuses on an individual’s relational experiences, their feelings and associated thoughts of themselves, and their familial experiences in order to identify and explore detrimental as well as beneficial factors contributing to one’s mental, physical, emotional, and/or spiritual health. In short, this framework explores the individual and the personal by exploring relationships.

The heart of therapy is the relationship between client and therapist, and the primary goal of IPT is for the therapist to enable clients to use the therapeutic relationship as a safe tool for exploration and empowerment. IPT seeks to provide corrective emotional experiences where folks can fully and genuinely identify and experience their emotions, especially emotions that were invalidated, silenced, or ignored in the past. In operating from the perspective of IPT, I highlight the strengths, growth, beauty, and truth that I have seen and experienced from you in our therapeutic relationship in order for you to experience yourself as such in other relationships.