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Episode Description
Can you teach someone to be a good therapist? Or is attunement something you just feel?
Hosts Ashley Charbonneau and Morgen Villegas talk with Maria Jensen, LCSW, a trauma therapist who started out as an industrial engineer. After burning out in an unhealthy workplace, she traded factory systems for nervous systems.
Maria shares what attunement in therapy feels like from the inside. She explains why silence can do more than words in EMDR and Brainspotting, and she talks about the question she asks herself mid-session: Why Am I Talking? The conversation also covers perfectionism, heavy caseloads, and why being present matters more than having the perfect answer.
This one is for new therapists, career changers, and any clinician who wants to be more present with clients.
GUEST BIO:
Maria Jensen, LCSW, is a trauma therapist who works with anxiety, OCD, trauma, shame, and neurodivergence. She was an industrial engineer before she became a therapist, so she pairs analytical problem-solving with deep empathy. She’s trained in EMDR, Brainspotting, and shame resilience, and her approach is nervous-system-informed and focused on brain-body healing and self-compassion. Maria helps clients move beyond survival mode toward lives that feel true to their values. She’s originally from Baltimore and now lives in Las Vegas.
CHAPTERS
[1:49] From Engineering to Therapy
[6:17] What Makes a Good Therapist
[10:46] Can You Teach Attunement
[13:56] The Power of Silence
[16:13] Doing Your Own Work
[19:08] Early Career Path
[21:50] Workload and Balance
[28:26] Neurodivergence and Lived Experience
Transcript
Introduction and Guest Bio
Morgen V.: Welcome back to The Art of Being a Therapist: The Space Between Training and Real Life. We are so excited for today's episode. So far this season, we've had the opportunity to learn from some incredible guests and hear a wide range of stories about what it means to be a good therapist. Some of our guests have followed more traditional career paths, the kinds of trajectories many of us follow in community mental health settings, hospitals, agencies, or private practice.
And others have taken less conventional routes, finding unique ways to apply their clinical skills and shape careers that extend beyond what many of us first imagined when entering the field. One of the things we've loved most about these conversations is seeing how varied the profession can be while still being grounded in the same commitment to helping people.
Ashley C.: Today's guest is another great example of that diversity. We're excited to welcome Maria to the podcast and learn more about her journey, the experiences that have shaped her work, and the insights that she has gained along the way. Maria Jensen is a licensed clinical social worker and trauma therapist specializing in anxiety, OCD, trauma, shame, and neurodivergence.
Before becoming a therapist, Maria worked as an industrial engineer, an experience that shaped her ability to blend analytical problem-solving with deep empathy and human connection. Drawing from specialized training in EMDR, brain spotting, and shame resilience, Maria takes a nervous system informed approach to healing that emphasizes brain-body integration, self-compassion, and sustainable change.
She is passionate about helping clients better understand themselves, reconnect with their strengths, and move beyond survival mode toward lives that feel more authentic, meaningful, and aligned with their values. Originally from Baltimore and now based in Las Vegas, Maria believes healing happens when people feel truly seen.
From Engineering to Therapy
Ashley C.: Got chills. Me too. Okay. Oh my gosh, I'm, like, reading and it just... I cannot wait to hear more. We're so glad you're here, and if it's okay, we'll just go ahead and dive in.
Maria J.: Yes. Thank you for having me.
Ashley C.: Yeah. So Maria, tell us what led you to social work.
Maria J.: My path has been unconventional. I liked the term you used.
My first career, like you said, I worked as an industrial engineer, so I was focused on processes, efficiencies of different systems, how things worked, and how we can make them better. My path to therapy wasn't entirely altruistic, I'll be honest. My work environment was incredibly unhealthy, to say the least.
I burned out, and I was trying to understand what was happening to me. In that process, I started noticing that people, many people around me were struggling as well. And as an engineer, I was trained to look at systems. I couldn't stop seeing the disconnects between some of those systems I was a part of.
the disconnect between management and employees, disconnect between expectations and capacity, a disconnect between productivity and wellbeing. And the more I paid attention, the more interested I became in the human side of those systems. So what began as a search for answers for myself eventually became a passion for helping others navigate the systems that were affecting their lives.
So in many ways, I still think like an engineer. My clients know that. We talk about it quite often. But I'm just working with nervous systems, family systems, and complex public systems instead of factory systems.
Ashley C.: It's so interesting because I've talked on the podcast before about how I started off as a math major, and being a therapist didn't come naturally to me.
What came naturally to me was, like, two plus two equals four. There's always a right answer. There's always a way to fix something. And so I'm curious if for you, the shift from a STEM career was easier than it was for me, or do you think that came pretty naturally to you?
Maria J.: I think there's always been a side of me that has- The empathetic, more connection with people, I think maybe that's also a part of kind of the shift because I was dealing with a lot of numbers.
I love a good spreadsheet, like to be analytical. However, there was something I felt like that was missing and that was working with humans in that capacity just a little bit more than the analytical piece. You're not just a number as much as I was trained to believe that. That was missing for me. But yeah, there probably still is a part of me that I would love things to be just part of me.
My work is constantly pushing against that in sessions and so forth.
Ashley C.: Yeah, and I think social work, all three of us are social workers. That plays a part in how we're trained and how we view the world too. We want to fix systems and a lot of times we see answers and we wanna problem solve right away. I have a colleague, and I told Morgan this the other day, a dear friend and fellow therapist of mine calls it the social work problem.
She sees social workers who are therapists try to jump in when clients are identifying problems, whether it's individually or systemically, and it's common for us as social workers to want to fix problems. And Morgan, I think you said even outside of social work specifically, a lot of therapists want to fix problems.
Maria J.: 100%.
Ashley C.: You have a systemic perspective and you see what could be fixed. It's hard to not jump in. I'm just really appreciating hearing a little bit about some of the historical pieces of how you landed in this space. Curious, what is it that you focus on now and how do you feel like that flows into our anchoring question here of what makes a good therapist?
Maria J.: I focus
What Makes a Good Therapist
Maria J.: on, I would say I work mostly with trauma, but that's a huge umbrella. I have morphed into brain body, EMDR, brain spotting- Modalities, parts work, bringing that into play. It's a mixture of all the things, but I think maybe we could just go with holistic as an umbrella. To go to the next question of what would be a good therapist, I love this question.
I think it's someone who can make a client feel seen, heard, feel safe and understood and enough to do the difficult work. Someone that is curious, consistent, empathetic, all of them would make a good therapist. But I always say to my clients too, if you've ended up in my office, we have tried to go around the shit as much as possible, and now we have to go through it.
So ultimately, I see it like a client interviewing me rather than the opposite. You have to feel safe in this space. You have to feel seen and heard. I'll be here with you, but you're gonna be doing the work.
Ashley C.: I appreciate that you said trauma is a huge umbrella, and I think trauma informed care is certainly a buzzword.
Yeah. And I think with some of my students and supervisees, they're like, "How do you do it? How do you do trauma informed care?" And I'm curious from your perspective, what does it look like or what does it feel like when a client is safe with you? Or even the opposite question. Sometimes I think for me that's easier to see, is when a client is dysregulated or does not feel safe with me.
Maria J.: Yeah. I can feel it, actually. The attunement that I have with my clients has to be there. I don't know if I can put into words what that feels like. I just know. And honestly, if they're not feeling attuned, we check in on that. Maybe there's something that needs to be focused on first. Some clients come in ready to do the work, and we can jump in second session.
It just is what it is. But I can just feel. I feel their nervous system. I can feel where they're at. Do you feel it, too, with a client, if they feel safe and open and trust, like they could trust you or be in a safe space?
Ashley C.: I think you're really talking about that co-regulated energy that can happen, when you're able to do that together and have a co-creation.
So it's not just co-regulation, also co-creation. I feel like the second you said, "I just feel it," I was like, "Yes, me too." And in IFS, it's called the self of the therapist, right? The self energy of the therapist, and that's like this inner knowing, this kind of experience that maybe does transcend words or a description.
You said, "I don't know how to explain it." I was like, "Oh, that's probably the self energy there." I just really resonate with what you said. And it's hard to explain that to folks that maybe are entering the field and maybe are in those cognitive processes through their intellectual, academic influences.
But you've done this now for years, and so now this is where you're at. And what brought you to that point is likely some of the ways that you provide support to clients is through some more of that somatic work, right?
Maria J.: Yeah.
Ashley C.: My career started with legal involved clients, and the priority was not safety.
This was 17 years ago, so I've come a long way, for our listeners. It's so interesting looking back at the start of my career because it was so much psycho-education and admit to what you did wrong and be fully accountable for your actions and never break the law again. I wasn't taught what you both just described.
I didn't know what it was until probably 10 years into my career. And so that has been a lot more of a journey for me, and I think that's why I phrased the question the way I did because it's easier for me to tell when someone's not safe. But I think that's because I spent so much of my career hypervigilant, being told, "Have your boundaries up.
Have your walls up. Never share
Can You Teach Attunement
Ashley C.: anything. You work with clients who have done pretty horrific things and you need to protect yourself at all costs." And it has been very difficult to shift my practice over the years. So I'm curious, Maria and Morgan, do you think you can teach that?
Maria J.: That's a hard question.
Was I taught it? I was taught about attunement, But I feel like you just know when you're in it. I, yeah, I don't know if you can teach that. You can teach someone, the basis of it, but then I guess with any modality, right? You teach them the facts and then they make it their own.
Ashley C.: It's like embodiment. I think what's interesting because all three of us are EMDR trained. As we know, it's very protocoled. Morgan, you're IFS trained. Maria, you're also brain spotting trained. And some of these modalities, while I appreciate the protocol because it makes it probably easier to teach to the masses, is it also inadvertently taking out that art of being a therapist?
And I think that's one of our biggest questions that we discuss in this podcast is, can you teach someone to be a good therapist? You can teach the modalities. You can maybe teach attunement. You can maybe teach co-regulation. I think that's probably a really thought-provoking question for a lot of our listeners because I don't wanna exclude anyone from the field, but I think there is a lot we can teach and there's a lot that we can't teach.
And one of our guests who is gonna come on later in the season, I always say she's inherently a phenomenal therapist, and so I'm curious what your guys' thoughts are on that. Do people have an innate talent or an innate gift? Maria, I wonder if you might speak to that, right? 'Cause you had a career shift, and so I wonder if, like innately there was like this inner knowing that you had to be able to bring you to this point.
Maria J.: Yeah. I was listening to the question like, "Ooh, I do feel like that." I think there is a gift to it. Even in EMDR, as meticulous as it is, the interweaves, they just come organically, like where are we gonna go with that? I mix all types of stuff. In brain spotting I'm doing bilateral stimulation with my tappers.
We were trained to do the bilateral stimulation with the sound, with auditory. I use the tappers. I bring in parts work. Sometimes, like in brain spotting, not talking is more powerful than talking, so sometimes you sit there for 45 minutes in silence as someone's processing, and some clients need more interaction than that.
So it's all kind of organic, I feel so that is a
The Power of Silence
Maria J.: talent. I don't know if you can learn so much as you're just following your intuition
Ashley C.: I love that. And that's how I can tell you're a talented therapist. I love how you brought up silence. I, very early on in my career, one of my colleagues challenged me to sit in a whole group session silent, and at the time it was hard for me because I talk a lot, I'm extroverted, I get energy from having conversations with other people, including in group therapy sessions as a facilitator.
And I'm curious, you said maybe 45 minutes goes by in silence. Does that come naturally to you?
Maria J.: Before I ever use a modality, I go through, and my clients, I tell them, "Tell me to shut up if you don't care," but I have to always explain it. This is what the modality is. Here's the theory behind it. Here's what's gonna happen, all the things.
And so before I do brain spotting, I'll always say to them, and even with the MDR, it may feel awkward, right? Because we're not gonna be speaking. And every time I do a session after that, it's not awkward. They have the acronym WAIT. I'm sure you guys know, like, why am I talking? And I always have to say that to myself of
I always have to say that with, okay, I'm thinking in my head, I feel the need to ask this question right now or check in and see where they're at, and I just, sit with that for a second and think, "Why the hell am I gonna ask this question right now? Am I gonna take them out of processing? Why would I ask that?
That's not for me. It's for me to know where they're at, and I don't need to know where they're at because I can see that they're still processing." So then I check myself, "All right, Maria, shut the hell up. This isn't about you," and just let them do their thing.
Ashley C.: They're processing I also love that you mention that, because it's not about us, and I've never heard the WAIT acronym before, and I wrote it down and I'm gonna use that all the time with myself, but also with my supervisees and people I consult with, and maybe even with clients in group.
Just add the S to it, why am I still talking?
Doing Your Own Work
Ashley C.: Yes. If you want. But how did you learn to include that in part of your practice?
Maria J.: I think doing your own work, and I know everybody says that, but you must do your own work. That doesn't mean you have to have done all your work. It's a constant thing. But you need to know and be aware of your own shit.
And so a lot of things that come into play, I know I have- anxiety, a flare of perfectionism, always wanting to make sure I'm doing the right thing in the session for the client and showing up in a way that's the most beneficial to them. All these conversations are going in my mind trying, during a session sometimes.
I just know that's my own stuff coming up, so I have to be grounded in a way. If that were to come outwardly, then it's gonna affect the session, the client's gonna feel that. So I'm aware of my own stuff from doing my own work. I have some different things in session that I do sometimes if I notice my brain's, woo-hoo, we're going somewhere.
I'll really dig my heels in and be like, "No, you're present. You're not getting sucked into this." And I just check myself throughout the session.
Ashley C.: I love that process of just seeking your own support, knowing when that might be activated, and then getting space from that so that you can hold the container for the client.
Maria J.: And a lot of it, it may seem like a lot to people that are newer in the field. I still feel like I'm newer in the field, but right out of school for instance, I think a lot of it is just getting to know yourself. A part of that is doing your own work, but I can't say enough about how important that is.
Ashley C.: Grad school is packed full of classes. Most of us were working part-time if not full-time, plus an internship, 15 hours, maybe 20 hours a week for two years, and we don't have time to get to know ourselves. And then we start post masters from that lens and from our own schedule and hours in the day being imposed on us for years and years, and I think a lot of us start our careers too doing too much and working too much.
I didn't have time to get to know myself. I think I graduated, and this is wild to say, I got my MSW when I was 22. What did I know about anything? I knew nothing about myself. I didn't even know what it would be like to get to know myself, and I thought I knew myself. What was that trajectory like for you, transitioning out of the MSW program and what did your career path look like after that?
Maria J.: My practicum experience in grad school
Early Career Path
Maria J.: was I felt like I was thrown in. But I will say that was, I started 2020, right? So my first year was the pandemic. Probably not the b- the best time where I'm not getting the full experience, but so I did- therapy for the first year, coaching for the second, and then I decided I don't think that's for me.
And honestly, I think that came from just feeling completely unprepared and thrown in. But then I went to case management for the next two years after grad school, and then started about splicing in clinical on top of that. It's been a hodgepodge of different social work activities throughout the last four years.
Ashley C.: Yeah. Then that led to where you are now.
Maria J.: I've been doing clinical for the last two and a half years. So there was that overlap of case management work and clinical, and then now I'm just doing clinical. And once I was able to learn some different modalities, I was in different work environments, I started feeling more confident in how to show up and feel like I could handle certain things.
Ashley C.: How does it feel now?
Maria J.: Now I love it. I love the work that I do. It's a lot to carry. I'm always wanting to learn new things. I feel like there's always new things to learn and things that I wanna add. I'd love to get into somatic experiencing. I'd love to add some breathwork stuff. I really think it'd be beneficial to do psychedelic psychotherapy, so there's always more I wanna learn.
I have a list actually right here next to me. And I have clients that'll be like, "Have you heard of this?"
Ashley C.: I just had a client ask me about
Maria J.: holotropic breathwork rises during the breathwork, so it can seem hallucinogenic.
Ashley C.: Now it seems like you maybe are in a space where you have the time or the capacity to do trainings and do that kind of thing at your pace.
Would you say that's true?
Maria J.: Yes. I think part of doing my own work is I still probably need to settle down a bit. I get a little excited and take on more than I should. It comes from a good place, right? I want to know all the things, but perfectionism is a thing, so in my own work I'm still trying to be able to sit with sometimes things are good enough.
Ashley C.: How many people do you see every week?
Maria J.: Right now I'm about 15.
Workload and Balance
Ashley C.: Okay. And how does that feel for your nervous system, your capacity and being your own boss?
Maria J.: It depends on the week. It depends on if I'm doing 15 EMDR or brainspotting sessions, it can be a lot. I'm still learning to balance it all. I haven't quite got that down.
I'm hoping that there is a point where I do. Every therapist is hoping for that eventually. We work with what comes up and what we have.
Ashley C.: Are you talking about, after sessions if you're doing the intense EMDR or brainspotting, like you're still holding onto the energy of that? After the session.
Maria J.: Sometimes I feel like I have gotten better about that. Yeah, just trying to juggle all of it, maybe learning how many in a day. Am I looking at seven, eight sessions a day, or should I be doing maybe four and working more days a week?
Ashley C.: We had another podcast guest say balance is an illusion that we're-
always trying to achieve and never can. That has resonated with me so much ever since she came on our podcast, and it's like you're describing this balance between perfectionism and wanting to learn.
Maria J.: That's good to know. At least I'm not alone in that, and that maybe there is a light at the end of the tunnel.
Ashley C.: Yeah, I think the balance between being flexible and adaptive versus trying to plan things out and set goals and meet those goals, and then life happens or clients happen, and that's okay.
Maria J.: One of the things my supervisors have been saying since day one of working with me, I love a good plan. As an engineer, I can't not have structure at least, but nothing ever goes according to plan.
So that is something I will continue to deal with and try to sit with the discomfort of.
Ashley C.: I saw somewhere it said that therapists are the only profession where we have six meetings a day and we literally have no idea what's gonna happen in each one. We can't really prepare- ... other than just showing up and being willing and ready to do and go with whatever is there.
Even in EMDR, the main anchoring statement is, "Go with that." Yeah. That was so funny and also remarkable. Holy shit. Yeah. How are we doing that? No wonder at the end of the day I'm so tired.
Maria J.: Yes. I love that.
Ashley C.: I've never thought about that until you just said that, Morgan. Oh, yeah, I'm just walking into whatever I'm about to walk into without an agenda.
And I think a treatment plan is somewhat of an agenda w- with clients. We have some direction, and I think both of you spoke to when you know your clients very well, when you're attuned, it does seem like there's some plan, and there's hope and confidence that the session is gonna go well. And I think all three of us have probably been in sessions or in meetings where someone says something and you're like, "I was not prepared for that, and I have less than a second to figure out what to do."
Maria J.: Yep.
Ashley C.: That's where I think the self of the therapist is so important. It is a very unpredictable thing, and what you're sharing, Maria, is you're used to a predictive process with engineering, and then now you're in this unpredictable hodgepodge.
Maria J.: Yes. And I try to just practice what I preach to my clients in that we're just gonna sit with that discomfort and figure it out.
And the most important thing, too, for the newer therapists listening to this is your relationship with your client, right? Your presence, that attachment. So at the end of the day, you don't need to have the perfect answer. You may figure it out later and be like, "Damn it, I should've said that." I've had that every single day, I feel like.
But just being present and having that attunement, having that attachment to your client is what is helping them at the end of the day. Yes, we bring skills and modalities, interventions, and things, but just being present. And it's okay to say if they have a question I don't know, but let me get back to you on that.
That's something hard that I've had to admit to myself sometimes. I don't know, but I'm gonna look into it now, and I'll get back to you. We can have a conversation then.
Ashley C.: And I think that is something we don't talk about. It's okay to not know something. And when we come back the next session and say, "Oh my gosh, I looked up that breathwork," that also cues the client into, wow, my therapist is listening to me.
My therapist cares enough to do their own research about something that I said, and that is so important to the work.
Maria J.: I think a lot of my clients haven't felt heard. oh wow, they actually listened.
Ashley C.: Yeah. I think that this is such a beautiful aligning with that though, right? Even outside the session we're still providing some kind of care.
I still think about my clients outside of session. I will read books that they're reading so that I can talk to them about their insight and their journey. Yep. I will look up or research things that they maybe are really wanting to dig into. Maybe that's an unspoken art of therapy. Just the container that we continue to hold is how I can connect by just doing those little things outside.
And I think good therapists, as Maria shared, are constantly learning. It doesn't have to be a $2,000 training over six months. It doesn't have to be this big certification process. It can be something seemingly very small of I'm just gonna do a Google search so that I'm aware of the language my client is using, and I think that can be very powerful.
It just creates human connection, and sometimes that also invites them in to share even more about themselves. That could be a chance to get to understand their resilient parts, what helps them present day in terms of coping, what has helped them build community.
Maria J.: Yeah, 100%. I love that. Talk a little bit of shit, jump in the session.
I love it.
Ashley C.: That brings me to another set of questions about the specialization that you have around neurodivergent folks, and so I'm actually
Neurodivergence and Lived Experience
Ashley C.: curious about this may also play a role in connecting around special interest or special focus. Curious how that shows up for you in your practice too.
Maria J.: Yes. I'll be completely transparent that I call myself neuro-spicy.
I'm attracting people that are like me. And with neurodivergent folks, I can relate so they don't feel as ostracized. They feel understood, and my engineering background is actually awesome with this crowd. But I think a lot of my own personal experiences come up in the work that I do. Like I said, I think I attract people that have similar things going on as I do.
And it's interesting, every modality that I use with clients is something that I have personally used myself as well, so I can explain it and I can sense, at least with my clients, that they're like, "Okay, she understands it. She's been through it. She's not gonna put me through something that she hasn't experienced herself."
Ashley C.: Yeah. I think good therapists can explain the answer to how can you help me in 100 different ways. Some of it does come from our own experience, and the clients probably rarely know that, but because of our own experience, we've come up with our own language to describe a modality, training, or intervention.
And it's interesting that you just said all of that because I did EMDR as a client before I got trained, and I think if it was flipped, I'd be a very different EMDR clinician. I don't think I would be, quote-unquote, as good of an EMDR therapist if I was trained but hadn't been a client myself.
Yeah, there's some validity with that. I've been seeing a lot more of, it's called the practitioner with lived experience. And so not just with a modality, but also with, let's say, neurodivergence or a specific identity. And I think just as paradigms shift, folks are just looking for that, right? It's about, does this person really get me in a way that feels holistic and beyond just the typical talk therapy experience.
Maria, any last thoughts?
Maria J.: No, I really appreciate you all having me on. I think there's so much we could talk about. I love this.
Ashley C.: It's been amazing to talk to you. I was like, okay, now we have 12 more episodes that we need to do based on this conversation. I wrote down so many notes. Maria, thank you so much for joining us today and sharing your journey.
I love how your story reminds us that the skills we bring into this profession don't always come from formal training or traditional career paths. Sometimes they come from our own experiences or our own innate gifts or talents, and I really appreciate your emphasis on connecting with others and being attuned and co-regulation.
Specifically, your emphasis on nervous system awareness, self-compassion, and helping people move beyond survival mode feels like such an important message today for both therapists and clients. We're grateful for your time, your insights, and the work that you do. And thank you to our listeners for spending time with us today.
We'll see you next time on The Art of Being a Therapist, the space between training and real life.
