Jesse Whittle-Utter, LMFT
Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist
Berkeley CA
I endeavor to understand what it's like to be you -- this means that I gather a lot of information in the first few sessions so that I can feel into your experience as fully as possible. I offer reflections, empathy, psychoeducation, reframes around your current and past experience, interpretations, and new skills and strategies to try. I work from a strength-based approach and believe that everyone has an inner healing intelligence that can guide them toward a place of deep thriving; I also recognize that family and social conditions routinely alienate us from that intelligence, and that partnering with a therapist is a useful strategy for finding your way home to yourself.
I'm a California native and Bay Area resident of over 20 years. Before becoming a therapist, I worked in the nonprofit and arts sectors, until I realized I wanted to do work that was more human-facing and relational. I identify as a queer man and love engaging with queer clients about the unique delights and challenges of the queer experience. I'm a licensed psychotherapist with over twelve years of experience treating a diverse range of clients, with a focus on LGBTQ+ folks. Informed by Internal Family Systems, EMDR, AEDP, and Jungian psychology, I help support growth/healing around acute & complex trauma, depression, anxiety, relationship issues, identity, life transitions, creativity, and systemic oppression. I have done extensive personal work with psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy and have found it to be profound and transformative.
I have completed the MAPS education program in MDMA-Assisted Psychotherapy and the Fluence training in Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy, and will begin UC Berkeley's Psychedelic Facilitation Training Program in Fall of 2023. I believe Psychedelic-Assisted Psychotherapy offers a uniquely powerful opportunity for accelerated healing, growth, wellness and spiritual insight. In my psychotherapy practice I currently offer Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy as well as psychedelic integration therapy for processing experiences with other medicines.
When Iʼm not working you can find me pursuing my other interests: pottery, travel, museums, game nights, good novels, collecting, being in/near water, exercise, cats, estate sales, Ezra Klein, slow-burn psychological dramas, Belgian beer, art fairs, quiet forest walks, and making things.
Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy, Individual Psychotherapy, Psychedelic Integration