About Jennifer
Jennifer Forbes is a licensed marriage and family therapist (LMFT) with 14 years of experience who founded Seed of Hope Counseling Services.
Background and approach
She trained at Northern Illinois University, earning a bachelor’s in psychology and a master’s in Applied Family & Child Studies with a specialization in marriage and family therapy, and has worked across non-profit and personal sectors since 2009.
Over her career she has provided counseling, consultation, supervision, and leadership while helping design and evaluate community programs addressing crisis, trauma, and clinical needs. Her work blends clinical practice with systems-level thinking, including participation on clinical committees such as the Illinois Health Practice Alliance, the Behavioral Health Consortium, and the Westside Community Triage and Wellness Center.
Jennifer uses several evidence-informed approaches to support people facing relationship challenges, trauma and abuse, anxiety and depression, addiction, grief, parenting concerns, intimacy issues, stress, and other life transitions. She also addresses a wide range of related topics including blended family dynamics, chronic illness, codependency, fertility and parenting concerns, and compassion fatigue.
Jennifer brings a practical, client-focused orientation to therapy and has helped hundreds of individuals, couples, and families navigate difficult times and build healthier patterns and supports.
Therapeutic Approaches and Online Care
Jennifer integrates cognitive behavioral therapy and client-centered therapy into online work. Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) helps identify and shift unhelpful thinking and behavior patterns to reduce symptoms of anxiety, depression, and stress, and it can be adapted to focus on relationship patterns and coping strategies. Client-centered therapy emphasizes the client's experience, offering empathetic, nonjudgmental support and collaboration to explore emotions and personal goals, which can be especially useful for intimacy, self-esteem, and identity concerns.Choosing the right approach is part of the therapeutic process and is decided together. The therapist collaborates with each person to assess needs, goals, and preferences and may combine methods such as motivational interviewing or solution-focused techniques when those fit the situation best. This collaborative stance helps tailor sessions to short-term goals or longer-term change.
Online therapy with this clinician uses video calls, phone sessions, live chat, or text-based messaging to make care more flexible and accessible. These formats allow scheduling that fits work and family life, offer continuity when in-person visits are difficult, and support ongoing coaching and problem-solving between sessions through messaging and chat options.
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Specialties and expertise
Top specialties
- LGBT
- Relationship issues
- Family conflicts
Also works with
- Abandonment
- Addictions
- Aging and geriatric issues
- Anger management
- Blended family issues
- Career difficulties
- Chronic pain, illness, and disability
- Coaching
- Codependency
- Commitment issues
- Communication problems
- Compassion fatigue
- Control issues
- Coping with life changes
- Coping with natural or human-caused disaster
- Depression
- Divorce and separation
- Emptiness
- Family of origin issues
- Family problems
- Fatherhood issues
- Fertility issues
- Forgiveness
- Grief
- Immigration issues
- Infidelity
- Intimacy-related issues
- Isolation / loneliness
- Jealousy
- Life purpose
- Men's issues
- Midlife crisis
- Money and financial issues
- Multicultural concerns
- Parenting issues
- Post-traumatic stress
- Postpartum depression
- Pregnancy and childbirth
- Process addiction (porn, exercise, gambling)
- Self esteem
- Sexual assault and abuse
- Sexuality
- Sleeping disorders
- Stress, Anxiety
- Trauma and abuse
- Women's issues
- Workplace issues
- Young adult issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 14 years
- Licensed
- Illinois
- Languages
- English