Telishia “TJ” Johnson Associate Marriage and Family Therapist

Telishia “TJ” Johnson, Associate Marriage and Family Therapist, 205342 is practicing under the supervision of Dana Lewin (Texas, LMFT-S, 202557) at A Better You Wellness, LLC.

Please, note: A clinician listed as being “clinically supervised” is completing clinical hours toward their licensure. They have one or more fully licensed clinical supervisors that often have special training. They consult with their supervisor(s) on all of their cases.

My personal experiences have kept me humble and increased my empathy for others. I have lived through my own challening experiences, some traumatic. Growing up, I was taught that we can never really know people. I have come to appreciate this more in my educated adult years, to mean that different circumstances, contexts, and relationships often "pull" behaviors out that might not otherwise manifest. I try to remember that everyone is doing the best they can with the tools and skills they have, and to help shed light on situations, provide a different perspective, and even provide alternative approaches when there is openness to receive it.

My approach to therapy is collaborative, and is part of the therapeutic process from my viewpoint. I believe in giving clients choice and an opportunity use their voice, two things they may not be used to getting outside of therapy. The therapy room is the perfect place for clients to become accustomed to identifying their needs and giving voice to these needs, within a safe environment. I also believe that whatever treatments or activities we choose to apply must be compatible with the person's culture, beliefs, and to some extent, personality. How this looks in therapy is after a goal is set, I might suggest activities both in and outside of session, to help with goal achievement. The client can disagree and suggest an alternate activity. We will discuss the pros and cons of the suggested activity and come to a decision. Afterwards, we debrief the experience, identify any lessons learned, and either tweak the activity, or if neccessary, find a new approach.

A big part of identifying sucess in therapy is in getting crystal clear on therapy goals at therapy initiation. The way I do that is to ask the client what their goals are for coming to therapy. In my experience, there are often some painful emotional circumstances which drive people into therapy. I am interested in identifying and comparing the client's desired outcome with their actual outcome, and helping them distill goals based on the gap between these two states. Once the client has shared their goals for therapy, we are breaking these down into smaller steps if needed; I am checking to ensure the goals are realistic; and I am supporting the client to tell me exactly what the desired outcome looks like, so we both have a picture, or shared reality of what progress looks like along the way. We are checking in frequently to see when we both agree that progress has been made or a goal has been achieved before moving on to the next goal.

I gained my early counseling experience in a private setting with LWC in Fort Worth, Texas where I worked mainly with couples, families, and individuals. In my work I noticed that a lot of issues related to communication, infidelity, mistrust and conflict were linked to differences in attachment styles among other things. It is natural that we seek partners with a different attachment style from our own as we attempt to satisfy things we missed growing up. Attachment styles are developed in our early years and can change over time. A lack of awareness and attuning to these different attachment styles can create misunderstandings, disappointments, and disconnects, especially in close romantic relationships. Once we understand these differences it neutralizes behaviors we once misinterpreted as rejection or neediness. In my experience I worked to help couples understand their partner's fundamental needs for connection and autonomy. We built on this foundation the ability to identify and express unmet needs in a way that others in the family system could hear and receive. With all clients, including families and individuals, I map out their patterns of interaction. We view these patterns in context with the behaviors and underlying emotions or needs of each person, which are often unexpressed. I support clients in saying the hard things and making sense of baffling or intolerable behaviors by determining the root cause. Then we collaborate to find solutions which help the system to function in a way that is less distressing and ideally, satisfactory to all.