Meet Jacqueline!
LMFT, CST, CSTS
Founder | Clinical Director
Hello! I’m Jacqueline Mendez. I’m a Licensed Marriage Family Therapist, Certified Sex Therapist & Supervisor, and a relationship & intimacy expert. I help adults and partners integrate body, heart, mind and spirit by supporting them in creating open-hearted communication, holistic healing, and unearthing their authentic sexual selves. I also help high-profile entrepreneurs/professionals learn to manage the stresses of leadership and improve their relationships at work and in their personal lives.
HOLISTIC HEALING
Our body remembers and holds deep within the tissue of our being what the mind and heart may have forgotten. What we experience in our lives, our tissues remember. In an effort to help us feel safe and so that we know how to respond and survive any given experience, the nervous and muscular systems develop a protective reaction for future threats. We develop a durable and robust defense mechanism or coping skill. Holistic healing does not “fix” a problem. Rather it helps us find ways to release and heal the memory of the body, heart, and mind and remember who we are before the stories and events that keep us stuck. By doing so, we teach the body to let go and unravel the habitual mental loops while opening up the heart space and reconnecting more “wholey” with the energy of the body.
OPEN-HEARTED COMMUNICATION
Relationships are not always easy. Often partners get stuck in habitual patterns of communication because of unresolved past hurts, unmet needs or unhealed wounds from their collective or individual past. I help you learn how to communicate your needs, manage difficult relational situations, and understand how to work through your own relationship thought and behavioral patterns while learning to hold space for yourself and your partner through the use forgiveness, compassion and presence. Together we explore what are your needs, requirements and deal breakers so you can create a more loving, vulnerable and connected relationship.
UNEARTHING THE GENUINE SEXUAL SELF
In my work as a sex therapist, what I have learned from my own journey and that that of my clients is that many of us have not met our genuine sexual self. Well-meaning parents, cultures and religions teach us about sex and sexuality but often layered with control, fear and focused on function—procreation, marital duty. Pleasure, vulnerability, and intimacy—with self and other—is often left out. My intention with all my clients is to help them see sex as an integral part of the human experience, to explore and express their own unique sexual flavor, and create freedom from the stories, dogma and rules that no longer serve them. I also see sex as a place for spiritual growth. After all, how often in a moment of ecstasy does someone say, “Oh my God!” I help my clients connect and integrate body, heart, mind and spirit in service to experiencing more intimacy with self, lover and life itself.
HOW I HELP
My intention with each session is to create a warm, non-judgmental space where my clients feel safe to explore issues that may be getting in the way of a more vibrant relationship, sexual life and even career. My goal is to provide you with the insights and tools you need to move beyond old, limiting beliefs and behaviors and promote growth, healing and connection with yourself and others. I meet you wherever you are on your journey to pleasure. I integrate body-focused techniques and spiritual psychology into my sessions.
MORE ABOUT ME
You can often find me spending time with family and friends, reading, playing with my fur babies (two cats and two labs), wine tasting, gardening, taking a dance class (booty shaking a must), and breathing in life and feeling all its nuances. You can also find me traveling to a new country each year—delighting in the culture, language, food and scenery of my experiences.
Licensed Marriage Family Therapist MFC43228
Education
M.A., Spiritual Psychology, University of Santa Monica
M.A., Clinical Psychology with Emphasis in Marriage Family Therapy, Pepperdine University
B.A., Psychology, Pepperdine University
Certification & Training
AASECT Certified Sex Therapist
AASECT Certified Sex Therapist Supervisor Candidate
4-D Approach Practitioner
Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Technique
Intimacy & Attraction, The Wild Woman’s Way, Nonlinear Movement Approach – Michaela Boehm
Additional Skills
Bilingual-Bicultural: Spanish speaking