Meet Jennifer

I’m Jennifer Freifeld, LCSW.

I'm a teletherapy-based psychotherapist in Cary, NC. I collaborate with highly sensitive women, helping them to attune to, trust, and live from their inner knowing.

If your searching has led you here, I can (likely) relate. For as long as I can remember, I’ve had a sensitive part of me.  I’ve both delighted in it and faced its challenges – as a child, student in rigorous academic institutions, professional dancer, mediator, and psychotherapist, as well as a friend, sister, wife, and mom.

For me, growth has happened over the course of many small moments.  My own IFS therapy helped me to deeply trust myself and create more of the life that I wanted. Yet, it wasn’t until I learned about high sensitivity that my experience had a context that made so much more sense!  Aware of my high sensitivity, I discovered and worked with blind spots and focused on finding my sustainable rhythm for meaningful work, parenting, play, rest, and well-being.

Working with high sensitivity- and all the gifts and obstacles that come with it-- has become a professional curiosity and passion. I believe that we all benefit when we bring our full selves into the world, and HSP women and moms have important, nuanced, deeply humane, and powerful contributions to make.

My therapeutic approach is rooted in science, mindfulness, and the wisdom of the body. Excitingly, both the research and my professional experience indicate that our high sensitivity makes us especially receptive to these therapeutic modalities and helps us to make lasting changes. 

Over the past ten years, I’ve collaborated with, learned from, and celebrated clients who may share some things in common with you- warm, creative, intelligent, sensitive and strong women and moms who, when we first met, were feeling drained, uninspired, lonely, anxious, or disconnected from their vitality and sense of purpose.

Perhaps you too are ready to:

  • Turn down the anxiety and turn up your calm and confidence,

  • Realign your time and resources with your priorities,

  • Speak your truth,

  • Feel energized, rested, and creative more often,

  • Let go of self-criticism and comparison with folks who are wired differently,

  • Genuinely appreciate and use your powerful strengths,

  • Be more playful and present in your relationships or parenting,

  • Take the next scary but right step that’s calling to you, or

  • Live confidently from your inner knowing?

I’m in awe of this work and humbled by each client – and the gift to be let into her deeply personal, courageous, and relatable journey.

Curious about how we might work together?

I believe…

  • 1.

    When we face challenges, we adapt in the best ways we know how at the time.

  • 2.

    Protective strategies are well intentioned, helpful at times, and costly when they overwork.

  • 3.

    We all have an innate ability to know our needs, find inner compassion and creativity, and heal and grow.

  • 4.

    Imperfection and authenticity are liberating, freeing up energy for what matters most to you!

  • 5.

    If we are engaged in life, we reach a time when we need help. Being true to ourselves does not mean that we need to do it alone.

  • 6.

    HSPs have important contributions to make. They do not have to stay small, but they do need to trust their inner knowing and find their rhythm for resting and replenishing.

  • 7.

    It’s human to face familiar patterns when we “level up” or meet new challenges. This gives us opportunities to practice compassion, curiosity, and courage and to refine our growth.

  • 8.

    “Isms” are real. They need to be addressed at all levels: in the body, individually, interpersonally, and systemically.

Qualifications

 

Credentials and Education 

  • Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW) in NC

  • UNC School of Social Work at Chapel Hill, MSW

  • Swarthmore College, BA

I’m dedicated to ongoing professional growth within my scope of practice, with regards to HSPs, IFS, the nervous system, somatic wisdom, intergenerational truama, anti-racism and anti-oppression.

I’m also committed to exploration of my parts and areas privilege through therapy and consultation.

Highlighted Trainings

  • Internal Family Systems (Level 1, Training and Consultation towards Certification)

  • Psychotherapy and the Highly Sensitive Person (HSP)

  • Sensorimotor Psychotherapy (Levels 1 and 2)

  • Being an Anti-racist Clinician

  • Motivational Interviewing

  • Acceptance and Commitment Therapy 

  • Image Transformation Therapy

  • Mindfulness

  • Nutritional and Integrative Medicine for Mental Health Professionals Certificate