Re-Source Counseling Center, PLLC

Jules Steffen, LMHC, PNN

Location: 530 W. Fir St., Ste. B, Sequim

Phone: 206-473-7178 by appointment

E-mail: j@julessteffen.com

Web: www.julessteffen.com

Jules Steffen has seen much pain in her life — as a licensed mental health counselor, she’s devoted her career and talents to teasing out feelings and destructive core beliefs from clients who’ve experienced psychologically and physically traumatic events.

She’s brought her compassionate philosophy of leading clients gently to their own realizations and empowerment to Sequim as Re-Source Counseling Center, PLLC, in the past month.

“I provide individual support counseling for adults who wish to focus on personal concerns, improve their daily self-care and are intentional in gaining clarity for living life consciously,” the 58-year-old said.

Steffen holds certifications in clinical hypnotherapy, prenatal and perinatal psychology and release therapy, the latter which she describes as “whatever (emotions) clients are holding with their body, getting in touch with feelings accumulated through various life experiences such as abandonment, fear, anger, sadness and shame,” she said.

“There are different kinds of trauma and shocks we hold in our system — the earliest times may have occurred during our prenatal and perinatal period,” Steffen said.

“Sometimes clients lead me there and sometimes, not. I go wherever they go — a lot of the time they want to stay in the current day, some want to go back to childhood and some want to go back to around the time of their birth.”

Gaining focus

Steffen said there are three things she focuses on with clients through ongoing sessions: containment, empowerment and resourcing.

Containment deals with identifying and tracking painful personal experiences and recognizing detrimental psychological patterns or imprints.

Empowerment is helping and supporting individuals in finding their own positive inner “voice” and making it dominant over critical or abusive voices from others in the past, including their own negative nagging.

Resourcing assists individuals in discovering their inner strengths and desires so they can appreciate themselves for who they are.

“I feel we lose parts of ourselves when we experience shocking events,” Steffen said, “such as the deaths of parents or significant others, witnessing the death of a significant other, near-death experiences, serious accidents or injuries, physical, sexual and emotional abuse or family violence — some kind of catastrophe that happened in one’s environment,” including early childhood neglect, she explained.

She added, “When shocking events take place, there’s a part of ourselves that leaves us so we get lost. Resourcing is a way of self-care that can bring us back in contact with ourselves.”

Steffen’s background

For much of her career, Steffen was a psychologist in a college preparatory boarding school, working strictly with adolescents. Since she’s been there and done that, she’s looking forward to challenges of treating adults only.

Steffen and her husband, a Methodist minister, moved from Bellevue to Sequim when he got a church in Port Angeles.

She’s a member of the Cherokee Nation and said her goal is to become connected with local tribes and learn their ways.

“I think one of my strengths is sitting with someone, listening to them and meeting them in their pain,” Steffen said. “I really work hard at finding ways to help them be safe as they discover their inner resources, for example setting boundaries. As we begin to lay down our defenses — and it just doesn’t happen overnight because it’s taken a lifetime to build walls — it benefits us.”

The rewards for Steffen are profound, too.

“It’s an honor to witness people as they heal, to walk that journey with them — it’s such an incredible honor.”

Reach Patricia Morrison Coate at pcoate@sequimgazette.com.