Jillian Zuboy MA, LPC
Growing up, I flowed along with life, choosing my next path as the one I was on would end or split. My free spirit and old soul tugged me along, until at last, I found my professional purpose: therapy.
My mother owned and directed her own Montessori Preschool, guiding hundreds of children, (and then their children), for over 40 years, and my father did much of the same, as a psychologist and college professor- for nearly as long. Though it still mystifies me a bit, I suppose it’s no wonder that I find myself an equal combination of them both: a therapist, who works with children and adults.
“My road to counseling was long, but helping people has always been at the heart of it. “
Children’s constant state of becoming, their ability to overcome challenges, and their unique private worlds, have always called to me. And I think my natural respect for children’s autonomy and dignity, as well as my honest interest in understanding their world view, has always called back to them.
In reality, we are all in a constant state of becoming, at any stage in life. We have our own unique strengths, weaknesses, life happenings, family histories, and personal challenges, and yet, we also share universal experiences like love, sex, marriage, birth, divorce, and death. It’s this phenomenon that has always drawn me in. How and why one person can eat divorce for lunch, and another can be totally buried by it; how some children can suffer trauma without losing the capacity for trust, while others struggle to find it again.
Whether we’re 8 or 38, life keeps throwing us curve-balls, demanding that we adjust our stance to get clear, catch, or swing for the fences. I think I was born embracing that curve, and excel at helping others do the same. I bring humor, warmth, acceptance, truth, and a boatload of clinical insight, when clients have none to offer themselves. I gain a foothold into their struggle, and together we find a way out.
Though I have specialty training as a child-centered play therapist, I am equally well-trained to counsel adolescents, teens, and adults.
I’ve worked with clients of all ages struggling with difficult transitions that many of us face in our lives. I’ve counseled grieving children, spouses, and families; children and parents struggling with domestic violence, trauma, suicide, and divorce; kids struggling to maintain self-control; students struggling academically; children and teens struggling with low self-esteem, peer pressure, social anxiety, and their developing sexual identities; and clients of all ages struggling with boundaries, balancing relationships, and life-hindering anxiety and depression. The list goes on because the struggle of growing up is real and never truly ends, it just changes with us as we age and the world demands more from us.
I meet clients where they are, no matter what age or stage they’re in, and help them find their own path to where they want to be.