Jill Langer, Ph.D.

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to tell you about myself and my work. I am a compassionate and effective psychotherapist who will work closely with you to help you overcome the unique barriers and obstacles that have stopped you from reaching the happiness you deserve in your life. My approach is highly collaborative; I am flexible in tailoring my work to meet your personal needs and goals.

As a therapist, I highly value our working relationship and am invested in your personal growth. My clients describe me as warm, understanding, trustworthy, insightful, supportive, challenging, and skillful. I use a strengths-based approach to help you see yourself more accurately and productively.

In our work together, we will collaboratively help you set and accomplish your personal goals for therapy. I can help you explore what is not going well in your life and increase your self-understanding. We’ll look at your strengths as well as identify patterns that are working against you. We can work together to help you learn to let go of unsatisfying ways of thinking and behaving, and increase your ability to cope more adaptively with life’s challenges.

I help my clients increase their self-knowledge in ways that allow them to understand, honor and let go of the past so they can create their own future rather than being stuck in old, frustrating patterns of behavior. As you develop a clearer understanding of yourself and your impact on others, you’ll get “unstuck” from the unhealthy patterns in your life and position yourself to have more fulfilling relationships and experiences.

Women and Wellness: Women often neglect their own needs, putting them last on a long list of other things to do including meeting the needs of those around them. This means therapy can have a profound impact as it involves dedicating an hour of your week to yourself and your own growth, goals, and wellness. In order to reach our full potential, we must learn to enhance wellness across its multiple dimensions: mental, emotional, physical, relational, and spiritual. I enjoy helping women learn to include themselves in their priorities and take steps to maximize their wellness.

Women’s Issues: Issues women commonly struggle with include self-esteem and developing self-compassion, maintaining an intact sense of self across multiple roles and in relationships, assertiveness including identifying and honoring your own needs, and creating a healthy weight and body image while engaging in healthy eating patterns.

College Students: I am passionate about working with college students and have decades of training and experience providing therapy to graduate and undergraduate students. I can assist you in learning ways to cope with mental health issues that interfere with your academic, career, and personal success. This is such an important time in your life as you face unique challenges. The choices you make now, including those about your relationships, school and career path, and your values and identity, will have a profound impact on the shape of your life. My extensive experience in university settings, including my work at USF for more than 10 years, make me an important resource and ally to you as you navigate these choices.

Adult Children of Alcoholics: Alcoholism and alcohol abuse affect so many families yet the stigma around substance abuse leads us to keep silent about our own experience. Growing up with a parent who abuses alcohol can have profound and lasting impacts on our identity development and our future self-concept and relationships.  For example, growing up in a home with alcohol abuse leaves us having to “guess at what normal is” as we develop a strong instinct to keep secrets that lead to shame.  When a parent prioritizes alcohol over our needs, we come to doubt our own worth.  If we do not address this, we often repeat this pattern in our relationships and struggle with never feeling “good enough.” Therapy is especially effective in helping you learn new ways to see yourself and others in ways that lead to more satisfying and supportive relationships and foster your sense of self-worth.

Grief and Loss: Losing someone we love transforms our lives and challenges us to find ways to mourn, heal, and adjust to a life that is forever altered. We often neglect to recognize when and how we need to grieve and we tend to judge ourselves for grieving the “wrong way” – though this is not possible. We not only grieve the loss of someone we love, but also for the loss of a job, relationship, long-held dream, or any change that disrupts our lives. Grief can be an overwhelming, confusing, and isolating process as we struggle to regain equilibrium and purpose.  I specialize in you helping navigate the murky, turbulent waters of grief including recovering from miscarriage.

Creating More Satisfying Relationships: Many of our difficulties have their origins in our prior relationships with others (family, romantic partners, friends) where people have, intentionally or unintentionally, wounded and shaped us in ways that stick with us and cause problems in our current relationships. Since these wounds were caused in the context of a relationship, it is natural that they require another type of relationship to heal. The professional, therapeutic relationship between client and psychologist is a powerful setting in which this healing is facilitated, and I enjoy helping my clients through this process.

Depression: Depression is both very common and very debilitating. It robs you of your ability to enjoy life and of the energy you need to meet your ambitions. If you think you may be depressed, you don’t need to continue suffering in silence. I can help you recognize and address your symptoms in ways that will help you start feeling like yourself again. I approach depression treatment from a holistic perspective that will evaluate physical, emotional, cognitive, and interpersonal factors that are influencing your symptoms. This approach is highly effective in helping you both understand and treat your depression.

Anxiety: Anxiety, while very common, creates a great deal of suffering and disruption in our lives if left untreated. I have specialized training in the latest approaches to anxiety  that focus on helping you learn to more effectively address anxiety, social anxiety, and panic. I work with you to develop an individualized treatment approach that will get to the root cause of your anxiety and help you break free from the fears that are keeping you from pursuing what is most important in your life.

Values Clarification and Identity: What are the guiding principles that direct your life and give you a sense of purpose? What is most important to you? Who are you and what do you stand for? Most of us struggle to answer these important questions as we are caught up in the busy-ness of our lives. We can get lost in the details, worries, tasks, and chores of our daily life and feel profoundly lost as we lose sight of the meaning and purpose behind them. Therapy provides a space for the self-reflection and support necessary to explore and clarify the values that guide our choices and actions. The result of doing so infuses your life with a sense of fulfillment and dedication.

Religion and Spirituality: If your religion is an important aspect of your life, know that I will not only respect this but will incorporate the aspects of your faith that you draw strength from in the therapy process. You will not be expected to “check your faith” at the door.

I’ve been a Florida licensed psychologist since 2002 and have provided individual and group therapy for more than 15 years. I received my doctoral degree in Counseling Psychology in 2001 from a top-rated counseling program at the University of Minnesota. My American Psychological Association-approved internship was at the University of Minnesota’s Counseling and Consulting Services and I completed my postdoctoral residency at New College of Florida/University of South Florida in Sarasota. I provided individual, group, and crisis counseling at the University of South Florida for 12 years and also have extensive experience in the supervision and training of psychologists-in-training.