Holistic therapy for a more connected life.
Juniper Sky is a collective of therapists in California specializing in relationships, family and parenthood, trauma, anxiety, life transitions and grief, neurodivergence and LGBTQI+ support.
Welcome, we’re Juniper Sky.
We’re a collective of therapists serving individuals and couples in California.
We believe meaningful change begins with understanding our inner workings—our patterns, blocks, and the systems that shape us. Through practical, somatic, and relational work, we help expand awareness and open the door to greater choice and intentionality.
Our values
Holistic
Rather than focusing on symptoms in isolation, we take into account the whole person - mind, body, emotions and spirit. We weave together a variety of modalities such as Gestalt, inner child work, narrative therapy, EFT and more. Our goal isn’t purely symptom relief, it’s supporting you in feeling more like yourself.
Curiosity
Curiosity is at the heart of what we do. We force ourselves to suspend solutions, judgement or critique and instead invite in a pause and openness. By doing this, we create space for new possibilities to emerge—one small, everyday moment at a time.
Systems thinkers
We specialize in identifying the underlying systems shaping both individual and relational dynamics, and in translating abstract emotional experiences into clear, grounded frameworks that people can truly work with. As we deepen our self understanding, we expand our capacity for intentionality, connection, and choice.
Depth oriented
We have a commitment to depth, growth and authenticity. We support clients who are willing to be held with care and gently challenged. We love working with people who are interested in their life’s journey and have a desire to evolve.
We work with couples and individuals, relationally
Esther Perel said, “the quality of our lives directly depends on the quality of our relationships”. At Juniper Sky, we believe that the self is fundamentally shaped by relationships. Our hope for you is that therapy leaves you feeling more connected to yourself but also more connected to your people. Here are some outcomes our clients often see in their relationships:
High-level self awareness
Understanding your patterns and patterns within your relationships, both helpful and harmful ones.
Communication skills
Figuring out your needs, wants and boundaries and then expressing them with respect and clarity.
Emotional regulation
Being with feelings rather than being hijacked by them to respond adaptively rather than react.
Healthy conflict
Disagreements are inevitable. Build the capacity to repair and reconnect rather than fight, flight or freeze.
More connection
Earning secure attachment is possible with a more stable internal world.
Finding joy
Therapy is ultimately in service of feeling lighter, more easeful and more regulated - more able to appreciate life.
Areas of focus
Below are a few issues our therapists specialize in. This list isn’t extensive. If you don’t see what you’re looking for here, contact us and we’d be happy to discuss whether our clinic is the right fit for you.
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Relationships are one of the most rewarding and challenging parts of being human. Whether you're navigating recurring conflict, a growing sense of distance, difficulty communicating, or simply a feeling that something between you has shifted, it can be hard to know where to start. Many people come to therapy not because their relationship is broken, but because they sense that something better is possible and don't quite know how to get there.
In therapy, we slow things down. We look at the patterns such as the cycles of conflict, the moments of disconnection, the ways each person has learned to protect themselves and we work to understand what's driving them. Using somatic and relational approaches, we help couples and individuals build new ways of communicating, repair ruptures, and develop a deeper understanding of themselves and each other.
The goal isn't a perfect relationship, it's a real one. One where conflict leads to understanding rather than distance, where both people feel seen and valued, and where the relationship itself becomes a source of growth rather than stress.
Meghan, Jessica and Mirisen are therapists with expertise in relationships. Jesse, Tim and Marissa are also therapists with expertise in ENM relationships. Click to read their profiles.
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Finding a therapist who truly gets it without having to explain yourself from the beginning makes all the difference. LGBTQ+ individuals and couples often carry layers of experience that a therapist unfamiliar with queer life can miss or misread: the weight of minority stress, the complexity of chosen family, the particular grief of not being accepted, or the nuanced dynamics that exist within queer relationships. Spending therapy time on education rather than healing is a barrier too many people face.
Our practice is LGBTQ+-led, which means you can bring your whole self into the room from the very first session. We work with queer individuals and couples on a full range of concerns such as identity, coming out at any stage of life, family acceptance, relationship dynamics, anxiety, depression, trauma, and the particular ways that living in a world not built for you can take a toll on your nervous system and your sense of self. Therapy with us is a space where your identity is understood as context, not complication, and where the work can go as deep as you're ready to take it.
Jessica, Tim, Jesse, Mirisen and Jaron are also therapists with expertise in LGBTQ+ issues. Click to read their profiles.
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Getting married, having a child, changing careers, losing a job, relocating, or watching a long chapter of your life come to a close. Even the transitions we choose can shake our foundation. Transitions have a way of surfacing old patterns, unmet needs, and questions about identity and direction that everyday life tends to keep just below the surface. It's common to feel destabilized, disconnected from your partner, or uncertain about who you are in this new version of your life.
In therapy, we create space to process what's actually happening. Not just the practical dimensions of the change, but the emotional and relational ones too. We help you understand how your history and your nervous system are showing up in the transition, and we work together to build the clarity, communication, and resilience that allow you to move forward with intention rather than just momentum.
Navigating a transition in therapy doesn't mean something has gone wrong. With the right support, periods of upheaval can become some of the most meaningful opportunities for growth, both individually and in your relationships.
Jessica, Jesse, Isabella, Jaron and Meghan are therapists who specialize in life transitions.
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Becoming a parent changes your identity, your relationship, your sense of self, your body, your sleep, your priorities, and your understanding of your own childhood. It can be profoundly beautiful and profoundly disorienting, often in the same moment. Many parents find themselves struggling with feelings they didn't anticipate: anxiety, grief for their former life, disconnection from their partner, rage, numbness, or the quiet and relentless weight of trying to do it differently than they were raised.
In therapy, we hold the full reality of parenthood. We explore what this transition is bringing up for you, how it's affecting your relationship with your partner and with yourself, and what patterns from your own history might be showing up in ways that surprise or concern you. Somatic and relational approaches help you regulate, reconnect, and respond to your children and your partner from a more grounded place.
Parents who do this work often find that it ripples outward in ways they didn't expect: steadier relationships, a deeper understanding of themselves, and the quiet satisfaction of breaking cycles that were never theirs to carry in the first place.
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Grief doesn't follow a timeline, and it rarely looks the way we expect it to. Loss can mean the death of someone we love, but also the end of a relationship, a miscarriage, a diagnosis, an estrangement, or any experience that asks us to let go of something that deeply mattered. In a culture that tends to rush mourning and reward moving on, grief can become an isolating experience where people feel pressure to be further along than they are, or find themselves unable to articulate what they're carrying.
In therapy, we make space for grief to be an experience to be witnessed and moved through. We work somatically and relationally, helping you understand how loss lives in your body, how it's affecting your relationships and your sense of identity, and what it might mean to integrate rather than overcome what you've been through. There is no right way to grieve, only the slow, nonlinear process of finding your footing in a life that has been changed.
What becomes possible in this work is not forgetting, or closure, but something more honest than either: the ability to carry your loss alongside your life, to find meaning in what remains, and to move forward without leaving behind what you've loved.
Isabella, Marissa and Meghan are therapists who specialize in grief.
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Anxiety is often described as excessive worry, but for many people it feels more like living with a nervous system that rarely gets the message that it's safe to rest. It can show up as racing thoughts, difficulty sleeping, perfectionism, overthinking, irritability, people-pleasing, panic, or a constant sense that something is about to go wrong. Sometimes anxiety seems connected to a specific stressor, and sometimes it persists even when life appears stable on the surface.
In therapy, we look beyond symptom management and become curious about what anxiety is trying to communicate. Together, we explore the experiences, relationships, expectations, and survival strategies that may be contributing to your distress. Through somatic and relational approaches, you'll learn to better understand your nervous system, recognize the patterns that keep anxiety in motion, and develop a greater capacity to stay connected to yourself when uncertainty arises.
As anxiety becomes more manageable, many people notice something unexpected: more freedom. Freedom to make decisions without endless second-guessing, to be present in relationships, to trust themselves more deeply, and to engage with life from a place that feels grounded rather than driven by fear.
Mirisen and Isabella are therapists with expertise in anxiety. Isabella has expertise in OCD specifically. Click to read their profiles.
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Trauma is not defined solely by what happened to you, but by how those experiences continue to live in your mind, body, and relationships. Trauma can develop after a single overwhelming event, but it can also emerge from experiences that were chronic, relational, or difficult to recognize at the time: emotional neglect, ongoing criticism, instability, betrayal, discrimination, or growing up in an environment where you did not feel consistently safe, seen, or supported. Its effects often linger long after the original circumstances have passed.
Many people come to therapy because they feel stuck in patterns they don't fully understand. They may struggle with anxiety, emotional overwhelm, numbness, hypervigilance, people-pleasing, difficulty trusting others, or a persistent sense of being disconnected from themselves. These responses are often adaptations that helped them survive difficult circumstances, even if they no longer serve them today.
In therapy, we approach trauma with care, curiosity, and respect for your pace. Rather than forcing you to relive painful experiences, we focus on helping your nervous system experience greater safety, flexibility, and connection in the present. Through somatic and relational work, we explore how past experiences continue to shape your relationships, sense of self, and emotional world, while building the resources needed to move through life with greater ease and choice.
Healing from trauma is rarely about erasing the past. More often, it involves developing a different relationship to it: one in which your history becomes part of your story without continuing to define its possibilities.
Jaron, Tim and Marissa are therapists with expertise in trauma. Click to read their profiles.
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Family relationships are so complex and they shape so much of who we are in the world. Just like couples partnerships, family members can find themselves wishing for better communication, more connection and a deeper understanding of each other. Family therapy is a vehicle for all these things. Maybe it’s a parent and an adult child that want to find more closeness, or siblings that want to find some resolution around difficult experiences they’ve had together.
We offer family therapy, which means therapy that includes multiple members of a family at Juniper Sky.
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Neurodivergence is a broad umbrella and can cover a wide mix of individual experiences. Our therapists will explore and connect to what is challenging for you and explore ways to support those challenges. Challenges can manifest in the form of anxiety, overwhelm, sensory processing challenges or sensory seeking, overstimulation and burnout - just to name a few.
In therapy, we’re not looking for ‘fixes’, we’re here to help you find the right mix of supports that ease challenges for you. We do this by exploring the emotional and internal experience as well as practical and logistical things that might be helpful - and helpful for YOU - not just additional ways to mask to meet the expectations of others.
Therapy can help you gain better self-understanding which can support you in making choices to fit your true needs, reduce anxiety, depression or stress, better emotional regulation, more self-acceptance and self-advocacy, improve relationships and support you in stepping into your most authentic self.
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Being raised male in this world often comes with a set of instructions, most of them learned early and rarely stated out loud. Feel less. Need less. Handle it. Keep the shape steady so everyone else can lean on it. Those instructions serve to help accomplish goals, and the attainment of those outcomes can often create the experience that everything is working as intended. And while these skills have their benefits, they also narrow the range of what we let ourselves feel. They have a real cost: a flatness that won't lift, a short fuse that doesn't match the moment and a quiet distance from the people closest to you. You can feel like you’re living a life that looks right from the outside, but doesn’t quite feel that way to you inside.
Many men who come to this work already understand their patterns - maybe you’ve read the books, maybe you’ve tried talking about this before - and still nothing has moved. That isn't a failure on your part - it might just be part of the cultural design.
In therapy, we work with all the parts of you to understand the full picture of what’s happening internally and the ways it fits or doesn’t fit with how you feel you need to be in life. Through relational and somatic work we let the parts of you that have held the line for years set the weight down, help you reconnect to parts of yourself that have been on the sidelines and build a life that truly fits all of you.
Men’s work isn’t a protocol - it’s more of a set of practices that we design together to support you in reconnecting to yourself, without blame or shame. It isn’t about “becoming more of a man” or toughening up. It’s about letting go.
Jaron has expertise in men’s work.
Meet our team
We're a team of therapists who bring together a range of modalities because we believe good therapy is alive and responsive, not one-size-fits-all. If you see a therapist you’re interested in working with, you can click to land on their page and reach out to them directly. If you’re not sure who is your best fit, contact us here and we’ll match you with the right clinician.
Marissa Damphousse, LMFT #106722
Founder of Juniper Sky Counseling
Expertise: Relationships, Childhood Trauma, Parenting, Ethical non monogamy
“Marissa’s ability to be both gentle and honest facilitates real transformation in her clients. She is practical, warm and listens deeply.”
Jesse Hewit AMFT #145434
Expertise: Relationships, LGBTQIA+, Life transitions.
“Jesse collaborates with his clients to help them find creative solutions and insights. He has a real ability to be present, kind and guiding with people as they navigate dark times.”
Meghan Campos AMFT #154701
Expertise: Relationships, Teens and Young Adults, Parents, Couples
“Meghan is immensely compassionate and respectful. She always sees the best in people and that in and of itself is a beautiful blessing for her clients.”
Isabella Beatty AMFT #156710
Expertise: Anxiety and OCD, Life Transitions, Grief
“Isabella is a wise and sensitive soul who uses those strengths to provide a warm for her clients. Her clients bloom into themselves under her care.”
Jessica Cruz AMFT #156378
Expertise: LGBTQ+, Relationships, Life Transitions
“Witnessing Jessica hold her clients with care and regard demonstrates how trauma healing works. She gives people a space where they can release.”
Mirisen Ozpek AMFT #156226
Expertise: Anxiety, Relationships, LGBTQ+
“Mirisen has a warm, active presence that helps her clients deeply connect in sessions. She excels at helping people feel more empowered and at home with themselves.”
Tim Pickett AMFT #158944
Expertise: Neurodivergence, LGBTQ+ support, Trauma,
Ethical non monogamy
“Tim provides a warm and non-judgmental space that allows their clients full expression to show up in session. Their collaborative style leads their clients to really come into their own.”
Jaron Vesely, ASW #139998
Expertise: Men, Burnout, Trauma
“Jaron has a way of naming what's actually going on, and that's usually what gets things unstuck. He works especially well with men who may look successful from the outside and still feel like something's off underneath."
Let’s get started!
We’re sincerely grateful for your interest in working with our team. When you fill out this form, one of our staff will reach out to you to schedule a free consultation call. If you have any questions, email hello@juniperskycounseling.com.
