Jennifer Carter, LPC

Jennifer Carter, known as Jenny, is a contemplative and somatic psychotherapist who runs Luminous Heart Counseling from offices in Jupiter, Florida, and Roswell, Georgia. She works with individuals and couples on trauma and relationship difficulties, and supports clients before and after psychedelic experiences.

Approach

Carter earned a master’s in contemplative psychotherapy at Naropa University in Boulder in 2012, in a programme that joins Eastern and Western psychology, and has run her private practice since 2015. Earlier she worked in wilderness programmes, including as a lead instructor for Outward Bound, and as a counsellor in community mental health and treatment centres. Her work rests on interpersonal neurobiology, polyvagal theory and attachment theory, with Somatic Experiencing and Internal Family Systems as her main methods and the Psychobiological Approach to Couple Therapy for couples. With psychedelic clients she uses IFS and Somatic Experiencing to help them work with mind and body around the experience. Her teachers include Richard Schwartz, Peter Levine, Kathy Kain, Daniel Siegel and Stan Tatkin.

Who it is for

Her focus is complex and developmental trauma and the relationship problems that follow it, often in people who seem high-functioning but feel anxious or disconnected with others. The patterns she names include chronic anxiety, overwhelm, low mood, people-pleasing, compulsive behaviour, disordered eating, shame and difficulty trusting. Couples work aims at repairing trust and breaking old patterns.

Practical details

Clients meet her in person at the Jupiter or Roswell office, or online if they live in Georgia, Colorado or Florida. A session costs $200, and a free 15-minute consultation comes first.

Care and safety

Carter holds counselling licences in Georgia and Colorado and a telehealth licence in Florida, and she is a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner (SEP). In trauma work she follows the pace of the body, and clients need not recount the worst events unless they choose to.