Jillyn Kaufman, LISW
Couples/Relationship Therapy
&
Pre-Marital Counseling
We are built for connection. Having a strong foundation with our partner impacts every other area of our life. Using evidence-based approaches, you can expect to see positive and lasting change in your relationship. You will gain insight, improve trust, and create a deeper level of understanding and intimacy.
Ongoing sessions or Intensives are offered to meet your needs and fit within your schedule.
Couples on the Brink: Discernment Counseling
If you or your spouse are considering divorce but are not completely sure that’s the best path, you are in a tough spot. And Discernment Counseling is designed for you. It’s a chance to slowdown, take a breath, and look at your options for your marriage.
Discernment Counseling is a way of helping couples where one person is “leaning out” of the relationship — and not sure that regular marriage counseling would help — and the other is "leaning in” — that is, interested in rebuilding the marriage.
This time will help you decide whether to try to restore your marriage to health, move toward divorce, or take a time out and decide later.
The goal is for you to gain clarity and confidence about a direction, based on a deeper understanding of your relationship and its possibilities for the future.
The goal is not to solve your marital problems but to see if they are solvable. You will each be treated with compassion and respect no matter how you are feeling about your marriage at the moment. No bad guys and good guys.
You will come in as a couple but the most important work occurs in the one-to-one conversations with me, your therapist. Why? Because you are starting out in different places.
I respect your reasons for divorce while trying to open up the possibility of restoring the marriage to health.
I emphasize the importance of each of you seeing your own contributions to the problems and the possible solutions. This will be useful in future relationships even if this one ends.
Number of Sessions: A maximum of five counseling sessions. The first session is usually two hours and the subsequent are 1.5 or 2 hours.
Discernment Counseling is not Suited for these situations:
When one spouse has already made a final decision to divorce
When one spouse is coercing the other to participate
When there is danger of domestic violence
Request more information to find out if Discernment Counseling would be beneficial.
AANE Certified Neurodiverse Couples Therapist
Intimate relationships can be hard, but they are especially challenging for neurodiverse couples who have very different perspectives, communication techniques, approaches, and skill sets than each other.
A couple is neurodiverse when one or both partners has an Asperger / Autism Spectrum profile. Because neurological differences between partners affects the dynamics of their relationship, including their communication, behavior, and ability to perceive each other’s perspectives, therapists must understand that neurology matters when working on the couple’s issues.
Neurology cannot be separated from a person — it affects personality, strengths, talents, and challenges — as well as the way a person views the world, thinks, speaks, behaves, and feels.
Neurology matters a great deal in an intimate relationship, since it impacts every conversation a couple has, how they make decisions together, how they raise children together, how they live together, and how they achieve goals together.
The Seven Principles Program for Couples is a customizable workshop based on the internationally acclaimed research of Dr. John Gottman as presented in his New York Times bestselling book — The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work.
This educational workshop is designed to help couples improve their friendship, increase intimacy, and deepen connection.
The Seven Principles Program includes lectures and private couple exercises.
Couples will not share their personal stories in front of others.
Book a workshop for a group of friends/couples, your church, or gift a workshop to an engaged (or already married) couple!
The Bringing Baby Home (BBH) workshop is a research-based and research-tested psychoeducational workshop that is dedicated to improving the quality of life for babies and children by strengthening their families.
This program is perfect for those: interested in having a baby, expecting a baby, or already parenting an infant or toddler.
The goal of BBH is to equip you with the knowledge and skill sets needed to constructively cope with the various changes that typically occur during the first three years after your baby is born.
In the BBH workshop, you and your partner will learn how to do the following:
Strengthen your friendship
Increase intimacy and affection
Work through conflict with greater ease
Maintain relationship satisfaction
Reduce hostility
Create positive parent-child interactions
Ensure quality
involvement for both parents
Reduce the incidence or severity of postpartum mood disorders
Jillyn is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker in Iowa and Illinois. She has experience in a variety of settings counseling adolescents, adults, couples, and families. Utilizing evidence-based therapeutic approaches, she is passionate about engaging with clients and facilitating authentic, healthy, and goal-driven outcomes. Jillyn recognizes we are all works in progress and encourages living into your values, having a safe space to be vulnerable, and knowing your innate worthiness.
*Accepting most insurances and private pay.