For more information, or to schedule an appointment, call 323 422 2036
KRISTIN F JONES, LMFT, MS, MA
Trained in Post Modern Therapies:
Narrative, Collaborative Language Systems, Solution-Focus
Certified:
LGBTQIA Affirmative Therapy
Antioch University, Los Angeles, California
Evidence-Based Practices (EBP)
Phillips Graduate Institute, Chatsworth, California
M.A. in Clinical Psychology with Specialization in LGBTQ+ populations,
Antioch University, Los Angeles, California.
M.S. in Environmental Studies with Specialization in Urban Environmental Stewardship.
Antioch University New England. Keene, New Hampshire.
PROFESSIONAL AFFILIATIONS
American Association of Sexuality Educators, Counselors and Therapists
AASECT
.
The Society of Scientific Study of Sexuality
SSSS
.
American Association for Marriage and Family Therapists
AAMFT
.
California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists
CAMFT
.
☕︎
Agency and Group work, previous:
Aids Project Los Angeles (APLA)
Counselor, Facilitator, HIV Men's Group
Los Angeles LGBT Center
Facilitator LGBTQ groups:
Trans-Perspective, Women's Coming Out Group, and Bi-osphere
Life Works
Facilitator Queer Youth Female-identified Group, and LGBTQ youth mentor
Camp Miller Juvenile Detention Center
Counselor, Facilitator for Substance Use Group working with male teens
Studio 12
Counselor, Facilitator working with people pursuing long term sobriety:
Men's and Women's Process Groups, Women's Sexuality Group
Aids Project Los Angeles (APLA)
Counselor, Facilitator, HIV Men's Group
Los Angeles LGBT Center
Facilitator LGBTQ groups:
Trans-Perspective, Women's Coming Out Group, and Bi-osphere
Life Works
Facilitator Queer Youth Female-identified Group, and LGBTQ youth mentor
Camp Miller Juvenile Detention Center
Counselor, Facilitator for Substance Use Group working with male teens
Studio 12
Counselor, Facilitator working with people pursuing long term sobriety:
Men's and Women's Process Groups, Women's Sexuality Group
PHOTO BY KRISTIN F JONES
.she.
About me, as a person:
Being Receptive is a daily vocation.
Outside any professional roles, my personal life is experienced through the embodiment of Southern California’s magnificence. Habitually, I connect to the city, urban forests, surrounding beaches and mountains with my appreciation for reflections, natural light, natural sound, spatial dynamics and shadow. It is known among my kin that I am pugilistically optimistic to my core, possessing strength-based realism whenever I have a personal goal in mind. I have learned from watching nature that the stronger the wind, the stronger the tree. Toil encompasses effort, exertion, and durability.
But like others, I too, trip and whirl in this lifelong dance with self acceptance. Rarely is ‘’personal meaning’’ cobbled and achieved outside the self, nor is it realized solely by tenacity. I have learned through the years that some undesired moments can become self-emptying, and do. These cavernous moments echo, reminding me that chosen and unchosen events are the vital ingredients essential to living a whole life. They assign feelings that befuddle me as I attempt self-understanding, and sometimes the lesson repeats itself, much to my astoundment. I draw back, mystified, drumming through outdated beliefs and feelings in search of new information that I may be fortunate enough to discover this time around. Yes, some days this is self of the therapist. I am one person in a vast place. Aching. Mistaken and Puzzled. Hello, human.
My resolve is summoned each morning with the spiritual development practices of qi gong and yoga, as these calibrate my strength and softness, stirring together what in outside of me and inside. Heart questions are approached with great care in a daily sit practice (MBSR) since 2001. Sitting is the root of my tenderness and fortitude. I also practice walking meditation, which is deeply and internally gratifying and supports sustained focus. But the most portable and important tool in my belt is being immersed in long silence over the course of a weekend. It’s a practice in reconciliation at the nexus of weariness and this chattering desire for a peaceful mind and house; all of which inevitably return me to myself, and to my relationship with people and things. Quiet is medicine, it soothes my ears, mind, and voice. The regularity of these gentle and vigorous exchanges mentioned above beckon my senses to stay a bit longer, each time. They choose me, as opposed to the opposite. They are unification, a merging, and support my desire for a strong constitution.
WC Fields noted, ‘It ain’t what they call you, it’s what you answer to,’ here’s my list: nature enthusiast, beachcomber, community volunteer, LGBTQ elder, LGBTQ youth advocate, animal companion, voracious reader and champion napper. In all of these areas I am a self-described city hermit. Solitude is metamorphosis, poured neat. In 2021, I successfully managed to kick the social media habit completely and mercifully (it's so enjoyable to see where the day takes me).
These practices have been borne from my own failed attempts with self and others as I remind myself of the saying, ‘’if failure don’t hurt, then failure don’t work.” And with that, I have come to learn that life is too brief to give it away to unconsidered choices, or to relationships that lack reciprocity.
In sum, for me it’s about a human desire to bring things closer.
Ever closer.
39 years old. Goblin Valley, Utah. All this beautiful world around me
On The Road to Find Out link
Yusuf (Cat Stevens), 1970
Yusuf (Cat Stevens), 1970
I asked myself about the present: How wide it was, how deep it was, how much was mine to keep -Kurt Vonnegut