Jennifer M BanksMS, LPC

I have had many diverse experiences and have learned from the toughest of those experiences. Through counseling, yoga, and service I felt as if I had been given a second chance and found a new resource in my body. In searching for my own meaning I found a way to help others find meaning through healing processes. I have always taken a positive approach that celebrates the human being, spirit, and mind. My existential training in my undergraduate years taught me to maintain genuine perceptions of the limitations of the human body and understand that we are all sharing this experience together. I consider human expression to be vital to the change process. I currently live in Fort Collins, Colorado and teach in the community where she has created programs and classes to help underserved populations. I specialize in alternative treatment modalities for rural and recovering populations and have created alternatives to yoga delivery outside of a standard yoga studio, including traveling yoga. My projects have included alternatives to the 12 Step Program, meditation courses guided by the seven spiritual laws of yoga, and vinyasa yoga classes at local community centers.

I believe that humans naturally want to move toward spirituality and heal. I don’t provide advice, answers, or secrets that will reveal to anyone something they don’t already know–I believe in the all knowing nature of the human self when congruence is achieved. In this light, I try to maintain the most congruent version of myself I know how, put up no professional façade, and works to hold space from a genuine place. I use these principles in counseling, yoga, teaching, and advocacy to impart techniques for stress relief and self-healing. Above all techniques, I esteem the client/therapist relationship as the most important. I consider this an equal partnership finding solutions to create empowerment. When empathy is operating on all three levels – interpersonal, cognitive, and effective – it is one of the most powerful tools therapists have at their disposal.

I am a Rogerian and very much esteem the basic conditions of therapy along with the following principles: 1. Two persons are in psychological contact. 2. The first, the client, is in a state of incongruence,being vulnerable or anxious. 3. The second person, the therapist, is congruent or integrated in the relationship. 4. The therapist demonstrates unconditional positive regard (UPR) for the client. 5. The therapist demonstrates an empathic understanding of the client's internal frame of reference and endeavors to communicate this experience to the client. 6. The communication to the client of the therapist's empathic understanding and unconditional positive regard (UPR) is achieved.

I have experience across the lifespan in many different areas. I specialize in play therapy and have worked with children as young as 3. I have also worked in child welfare as a home based therapist and with foster parents as we worked toward reunification and attachment. I have developed an adventure program for elementary aged children informed by the National Indian Youth Leadership Association in addition to working as a school counselor. I have worked with adolescents in a residential setting and college aged clients in community college and fraternity and sorority life. Most recently, I have worked virtually during covid as well as working at a partial hospitalization program for eating disorders.

420 West Oak Street, Fort Collins, 80521, CO