Today we’d like to introduce you to Jordan Dann.
Hi Jordan, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
As a young child, I fell in love with theatre out of a psychological impulse: I wanted to understand myself and to understand others. Throughout my adolescence, theatre became a laboratory where I could investigate the psychology of characters inside of plays and experience expediated intimacy alongside other people who were passionate about the art form. I attended Boston University’s School of Fine Arts and completed a B.F.A in acting and an M.F.A in theatre education with a focus in Voice and Movement.
During my MFA in theatre education, I began teaching Linklater Voice technique, a somatic progression for freeing habitual tensions from the body in order to provide maximum freedom for self-expression. The work awakens new connections between the voice, body, and mind through a process of physical awareness, imagery, breathwork, and the progressive release of tension throughout the vocal channel.
As I began training actors and working directly with student’s bodies, what I encountered again, and again with my students was somatic memory and unprocessed trauma. As I worked with the student’s body to release physical tension in service of mastery over their instrument, they were able to “let go” of traumatic memories and experiences that had been directing their day-to-day experience. At a certain point coaching actors for theatrical application began to feel like an interruption to the more essential healing process that I was interested in, which is when I become a psychoanalyst.
During the beginning stages of my business, I began working with couples, which has become another meaningful aspect of my work. Growing up, no one taught me how to be in relationship. I learned to be in a relationship as a result of the relationships I had with my parents and the relationship that I observed between my mother and father. While my parents did the best that they could to make one another happy – their marriage ended in divorce when I was 22 years old.
Throughout my teens, 20’s, and 30’s, I had a lot of relationships and while I met some wonderful people along the way, most of the time, I was either leaving or being left. I wanted to be in a relationship very much and I couldn’t figure out what I was doing wrong.
At this time in my life, I started going to therapy. In therapy, I learned how the relationships in my childhood played a part in my adult relationships and I began to take personal responsibility for my actions and choices in my relationships.
After several years of working on myself in therapy, I met my husband, Keith, and it is over the past 11 years that we have both become one another’s best teachers about how to be in a healthy relationship. Over the course of our relationship, we have read couple’s books together, been to couples retreats together, and every day we intentionally practice all the skills we have learned to keep our relationship healthy.
My experience of going to therapy has offered me a tremendous education about how to have a healthy relationship. There is so much help and expertise available to learn how to have a healthy relationship. You and your partner just have to want to get help and be willing to put in the work.
My work with couples and somatic therapy has been the fundamental aspect of my own therapeutic journey and I have worked with hundreds of individuals who have said that talk therapy wasn’t enough, and it was the incorporation of a somatic practice that finally changed their relationship with themselves.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It has not been a smooth road. As a result of my own personal healing and development, I have a lot of awareness about how many of the professional and personal choices I made earlier in my life were being driven more by unconscious reasons and my own attachment trauma than anything else.
As I began to work on myself, my motivations for some of the choices in my life became clear, which allowed me to pivot in a new direction and align myself with choices and relationships that were more authentic.
That being said, the diversity of the kinds of work that I have done are an asset in my current work as a therapist and coach. I draw on all of my theatrical and creative training, and certainly the time I spent as an educator is an incredible resource in my work with clients.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your business?
Somatic Therapy
Somatic therapy is a holistic approach to psychological healing and personal growth that works directly with the mind-body connection. My personal approach to somatic therapy combines elements of Somatic Experiencing, talk therapy, Gestalt therapy, mindfulness, and body-centered awareness practices, which are aimed at healing and resolving the root of psychological issues. My work is very gentle, playful, and powerful and allows individuals to discover untapped potential that extends into every aspect of their lives and has lasting change. Become more of who you already are.
Couples Therapy
My work with couples is informed by my training as a Gestalt psychoanalyst as well as my training in Imago Relationship Therapy and Somatic Experiencing. I work with couples to help them understand their relationship dynamic, identify their needs, clarify their relationship vision, understand one another’s childhood trauma, and learn a new way of communicating with one another.
Most importantly the couples I work with learn how to practice safe communication with one another. They learn how to appreciate one another in a deep and meaningful way, how to create a vision and embody that vision, how to create a personal and unique partnership and family culture, how to approach conflict, how to take responsibility in their dynamic, how their history impacts how they show up in a relationship, and how to request behavior changes of one another.
I also offer virtual marathon sessions for couples, which is a highly-effective, intensive, and evidence-based therapeutic modality for couples wanting to heal old wounds, move beyond negative interactive patterns and embrace new communication skills for creating a sustainable and satisfying relationship. During a marathon couples learn nervous system psycho-ed (diffuse physiological activation and the impact of “flooding” on relationships); the most essential Imago Relationship Therapy Dialogue structures; and elemental building of mentalization and metacognition (i.e., teaching couples to hold one another’s histories in order to navigate conflict more effectively and with less personal reactivity).
Contact Info:
- Email: jordandanntherapy@gmail.com
- Website: www.jordandann.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jordandann/
Image Credits
All taken or created by Jordan Dann.
