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DR. JEANETTE SAWYER COHEN PhD, MPhil, MS, IMH-E®
Jeanette teaches Prana's Mindful Parenting for Toddlers workshop. I'm from... I am from New York and have lived upstate, downstate, and inside and outside of the city. I have a lot of local pride and especially love our NY fall and spring! My education and training... I became interested in Mindful Parenting prior to graduate school, when I was completing a pre-doctoral research fellowship on parent-child interactions at the National Institutes of Health, while also studying the use of meditation in psychotherapy at the Washington Center for Consciousness Studies. I brought these interests together during my doctoral studies at Columbia, where I researched mindfulness and self-compassion in the perinatal period. During that time, I trained as a birth doula and completed a three-year post-doctoral specialization in dyadic parent-infant psychotherapy. After then consulting in early childhood settings (including pediatric primary care, early intervention and preschool special education), I started a private practice, while continuing to seek out training opportunities focused on women’s mental health and reproductive psychology. My backstory… I come from a family of creative, curious people, many of whom are in “helping professions” like education and medicine. My late uncle was a psychologist who would ask questions when we were kids like, “why is it that after someone puts a letter in the mailbox (the kind that ‘eats’ your letter when you close the hinge), they look again just to make sure it is gone?” Like him, I was always intrigued with human behavior, and wanted to be in a “helping profession.” I experienced a lot of changes during my preschool years which I’m sure contributed to my specific interest in early childhood. Over the course of my educational and training experiences, I developed a strong interest in autism, and then in parenting stress, and then in women’s mental health. I understood the importance of thinking about the whole family system. Currently I enjoy that psychotherapy for mothers can move seamlessly between a focus on her own internal experiences, her relationships, and her child’s development or behavior. I love being a psychologist because... I find this work both intellectually stimulating and awe-inspiring. I am truly honored to bear witness to life’s struggles and triumphs, and to help people with both change and acceptance. Across the lifespan I have seen amazing growth that re-affirms my inherent optimism. I also love that my work invites me to be playful, creative and present. My work style... Drawing from cognitive-behavioral, psychodynamic, and mindfulness-based approaches, my style is individualized to meet the needs of each client. Some women are primarily interested in symptom reduction, while others want to process past experiences or learn to parent in a way that is more intentional and less reactive. I work with women experiencing anxiety, depression, loss, trauma, and relationship stress in the perinatal period and beyond. Many women are interested in some blend of psychotherapy and parent guidance, and the focus of our work together may evolve over time. When I am not practicing psychology, I am… Outside of my psychology practice, I prioritize time with family and friends. I enjoy coffee, sunshine, nature, Pilates, learning, and creative endeavors. |
