Meet Our Expert Team Across Maryland, DC, and Pennsylvania

I am an undergraduate intern from Bethesda, Maryland. I am an incoming senior at the University of Delaware studying Human Services, with a Clinical/Pre-Social Work concentration, and minors in Disability Studies and Business Administration. I chose this field of study because I am passionate about working directly with individuals and supporting them through their unique life experiences with care and compassion.

At Juniper Blu Collective, I hope to learn more about therapeutic relationships and the different approaches used within the practice. I am excited to be interning at a practice that supports individuals within my area. I also am eager to learn about the business side of therapy and gain more exposure within this field. I look forward to working with and learning from the Juniper Blu Collective team!

My name is Batya and I am excited to work with your child. My approach centers on building a supportive and collaborative relationship with my clients and their parents. I believe that growth can occur when a strong therapeutic relationship is created, accompanied by a safe environment in which children and adolescents feel safe, heard, and valued. I am passionate about helping young people develop essential skills that will serve as a strong foundation for their growth into confident, resilient adults.

Born and raised in Washington, D.C. and its surrounding suburbs, I am familiar with some of the unique challenges of living in this area. I earned my master’s degree in School Counseling from The George Washington University and am a Licensed Graduate Professional Counselor.

Over the past six years, I have worked with diverse populations of children and adolescents across K-12 schools, helping them navigate academic, social, and emotional challenges. I understand that today’s children and adolescents face mounting pressures to succeed, along with unique challenges stemming from social media and the internet.

Having worked extensively in school settings, I have seen firsthand the difficulties students with ADHD and executive functioning challenges encounter, whether it’s staying organized, managing schoolwork, or regulating strong emotions. I use evidence-based strategies to help children improve organization, planning, and self-control, while also fostering self-awareness and resilience.

In addition to my work with children and adolescents, I am an avid animal lover and have been involved in animal rescue for many years. I welcome clients who wish to explore the therapeutic bond with their pets or who are coping with pet loss, recognizing the important role animals play in our emotional well-being.

Whether your child is struggling in school, facing anxiety related to social media, or needs emotional support, I am here to help. I invite you to reach out and see how we can work together to support your family’s journey.

Beginning your healing journey can be daunting. You want to feel better, but may be anxious to take that first step. It’s okay to feel that way! It will get easier, and Riley will be right there helping to guide you every step of the way.

We all deserve to be listened to, empathized with, and understood. Riley is passionate about working with individuals to help them better understand, become comfortable with, and manage their emotions. She’ll provide a safe, accepting, and judgment-free environment for the two of you to explore together.

Riley utilizes an integrative approach to meet you where you are and explore your needs. She takes a person-first, strengths-based, and trauma-informed approach to the therapeutic process, working collaboratively with her clients to help them along their healing journey.

Riley is a Licensed Social Worker with experience in hospice, addiction treatment, school settings, and 1:1 therapy. She received her Bachelor’s in Social Work from Skidmore College and her Master’s from the University of Denver.

Are you feeling overwhelmed by anxiety, depression, or struggling to connect with others? Do you find yourself caught in cycles of conflict, misunderstanding, or emotional distance? Is loss casting a long shadow over your life?

These challenges can be isolating and exhausting, but you don’t have to face them alone.

As a dedicated counselor, I specialize in helping individuals overcome anxiety, depression, and relationship challenges. I believe in creating a safe and supportive space where you can explore your emotions, develop coping skills, and rediscover hope. My certifications in mindfulness-based therapy and trauma-informed care allow me to offer evidence-based approaches tailored to your unique needs.

Being born and raised in Montreal, Quebec, Stacey developed a comprehensive understanding of mental health challenges through extensive work in both agency and private practice settings. Her bilingual proficiency in English and French has allowed her to serve a diverse clientele. Possessing a wealth of experience in supporting individuals with severe mental health conditions, Stacey is adept at providing compassionate care and tailored interventions. Her client-centered approach emphasizes empathy, open-mindedness, and a collaborative partnership in the therapeutic process.

Stacey is a dedicated counselor who specializes in helping individuals cope with anxiety, depression, and interpersonal issues. She is a Licensed Graduate Professional Counselor in both Maryland (LGP14817) and in the District of Columbia (LGPC200001672). She is a Nationally Certified Counselor and is a Certified Mindfulness-Informed Professional.

Are you seeking a highly skilled and compassionate therapist to guide you through the complexities of trauma, PTSD, anxiety, depression, or neurodiversity? Do you find yourself trapped in a cycle of the same disruptive behavior? Do you find yourself overthinking and unable to stop worrying or letting go? Avoiding events, people, or important things in your life? Reliving past experiences? Feeling fatigued, tired, sad, or anxious? Picture a life where you can live with less anxiety, be in control, feel confident, and authentically happy. Therapy with Annie Sousa can help you achieve just that.

Annie Sousa is a dedicated therapist with specialized expertise in addressing PTSD, anxiety, OCD, trauma, depression, and the unique experiences of neurodivergent individuals. She has extensive experience working with intrusive thoughts, compulsions, self-esteem issues, self-schema, and sensory overwhelming issues. Annie’s therapeutic approach is rooted in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), emphasizing positive psychology, strength, wellness, and prevention. She employs a strengths-based approach to therapy, crafting personalized plans that empower clients to identify their goals and enhance their well-being.

Certified in EMDR therapy for trauma and utilizing Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), among other techniques, Annie’s repertoire includes innovative approaches tailored to the specific needs of her clients, ensuring a comprehensive and practical therapeutic experience. Annie also has extensive experience with neurodivergent individuals who go through life masking and struggle with social relations, including interpreting social cues and tones and understanding how disruptive thought patterns can impact daily functioning.

Annie has completed her education and is now a licensed clinician with a Master’s in Counseling with a specialization in Child and Adolescent Development at Northwestern University. She holds both a BA and an MA from Florida International University. Her extensive professional journey spans communications, education, behavioral analysis, and significant volunteer work during the pandemic, assisting various communities. This diverse background, enriched by her global experiences and personal journey as a neurodivergent individual, equips her with profound empathy and a unique perspective on mental health care.

Offering support through telehealth, Annie is committed to serving individuals and families in Maryland and DC. She focuses on building resilience, fostering emotional connections, and empowering clients to take control of their lives. Her training, accredited by the Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs (CACREP), and adherence to the American Counseling Association’s Codes of Ethics underscore her dedication to the highest standards of care. Annie’s commitment to understanding, supporting, and validating her clients’ diverse concerns ensures an inclusive and transformative therapeutic experience.

Suppose you are navigating the challenges of OCD, PTSD, trauma, anxiety, depression, or the nuances of neurodiversity. In that case, Annie Sousa provides a professional, empathetic, and skilled approach to mental health care. At Juniper Blu Collective, you will find a safe and supportive environment to explore your experiences, confront your challenges, and uncover your strength to navigate life’s adversities.

Are you or a loved one navigating the complexities of chronic illness, facing the challenges of grief, or experiencing the emotional toll of a serious medical condition? Do you find yourself struggling with the unique demands of perinatal or postpartum care, or supporting a child with special needs?

These experiences can be incredibly overwhelming, but you don’t have to face them without support or guidance.

As a compassionate Licensed Clinical Social Worker, I specialize in supporting individuals and families through the toughest moments of life, including chronic disease management, oncology, terminal illness, and the grief that often accompanies these challenges. I also have a deep commitment to helping mothers during the perinatal period and supporting families of children with autism and other special needs. I have expanded my knowledge with training in eating disorders in adults, children and individuals with special needs, as well as lactation consulting and disordered eating in pregnancy and breastfeeding. My approach is grounded in empathy and evidence-based practices, including narrative therapy, problem-solving, and solution-focused techniques, all aimed at empowering you to navigate your journey with resilience and hope.

With a strong background in healthcare and medical social work, Michelle has devoted her career to supporting individuals facing some of life’s most difficult challenges. Her work in both clinical and community settings, including hospitals and private wellness centers, has equipped her with the skills and experience necessary to provide comprehensive care. Michelle’s experience includes graduate field placements with the Lehigh County Office of Aging and Manito Equine Psychotherapy, which have further enriched her practice.

Michelle is a firm believer in the power of interprofessional collaboration, ensuring that her clients receive the best possible care. She is currently expanding her expertise with additional training in eating disorders, particularly focusing on adults, children, and individuals with special needs, as well as disordered eating during pregnancy and breastfeeding. Michelle’s commitment to her clients is unwavering, and she strives to create a supportive and empowering environment for everyone she works with.

Jamie Jones helps people learn to live their life from the inside out. Change your perception, change your life!

As a Psychotherapist, (licensed professional counselor #PRC14344, licensed clinical professional counselor #LC8086, clinical professional art therapist ATC046, and board certified art therapist #06174), Jamie is a Certified Telebehavioral Health Professional (TBHP) and a Certified Dialectical Behavior Professional (C-DBT). Clients describe Jamie as attentive, calm, knowledgeable, resourceful, direct, solution focused, and funny.

Jamie has over 17 years of experience working as a therapist for women, men, children and families who just like you want to free themselves from self-destructive patterns and learn how to live a balanced life right here in the Washington, DC area.

Jamie was born and raised in Colorado and has been a resident of the Washington, DC area for 17 years.  Jamie’s therapeutic philosophy and fundamental approach to  working with people reflects the synthesis of her upbringing in Colorado and adulthood here in Washington, DC.   As a Washington DC area therapist, Jamie has witnessed many people’s common desire to live a more balanced lifestyle.  Unfortunately people feel stuck in a repetitive cycle while trying to attain it.  Jamie shares lessons of how to live a balanced lifestyle in each therapeutic session with people like you who desperately want to change their lives. 

Jamie’s therapeutic focus is on you and your unique perception of your daily life and surrounding environment. It is explored through verbal and symbolic forms of individual and group psychotherapy.  This process creates a focused consciousness on your personal inner perceptions regarding who you are and who you want to become.  

As a Washingtonian herself, Jamie understands the challenges you face while living in a demanding city where many people feel a balanced lifestyle is unattainable.  Working with Jamie will help you learn how to live a balanced lifestyle right here in Washington, DC.

Jamie Jones specializes in the treatment of individuals who struggle with self-harming behaviors, including cutting, disordered eating, and addiction.  Often individuals struggling with self-harming behaviors may also experience post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, anxiety, obsessive-compulsive behavior, poor body image, perfectionism, shame, guilt, and low self-worth.  

Although you may be familiar with some of the terms listed above several of the more common terms used to describe individuals who seek Jamie’s assistance include ‘expecters’, the ‘over-nurturer’ and caretakers, high achievers, perfectionist(s), over-doers, over-exercisers, and under-exercisers.   Jamie offers her expertise and services to help each person in their own personal development of freedom from these behaviors in order to attain a more comfortable and balanced life.   

She has been trained in Psychodynamic Psychotherapy and Art Therapy, Advanced Dialectic Behavioral Therapy (DBT), Telehbehavior Health (TBHP), Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Active Commitment Therapy (ACT) and Brief Solution Focused Family Therapy (BSFFT).     

She is a member of the Society For Dialectical Behavioral Therapy Association, Binge Eating Disorder Association (BEDA), and Families Empowered and Supporting Treatment of Eating Disorders. 

Work life balance can often time come with various challenges leaving you unsure of your next move. On day-to-day basis we make choices that not only affects the now but also has a huge impact on our future. Balancing those choices is important when understanding the idea of self-care. Together we will face those challenges and work through the mountain known as life. 

Jenna Howard is a Licensed Graduate Counselor (LGPC00748) in the District of Columbia. Jenna earned her Master Degree in Mental Health Counseling from Monmouth University.  She has nine plus years of experience working with relationship challenges, anxiety, depression, eating disorder, grief, and addiction counseling. She also has experience with facilitating psychotherapy groups. Clients would describe her as empathic, direct, and funny.

Jenna has experience in Addiction Counseling through facilitating and assisting groups using qualitative evidence-based treatment for adults and adolescents with serious mental health diagnoses, substance abuse problems, and co-occurring disorders. She worked overnight as a Mental Health Associate providing inpatient and intensive outpatient care for adults and older adults diagnosed with psychiatric and dual disorders. Jenna worked as a Support Counselor for a youth helpline where she assisted callers through crisis by easing their frustration and worry encouraging them to make decisions promoting their safety and well-being. She also worked as a Nursing Assistant for a few years with patients who suffered from debilitative diseases. Her experiences required her to exemplify patience, integrity, honesty, and humility.  

 Not only does Jenna have a vast amount of experience in counseling. She is employed by the federal government and holds a Senior Level Certification in Project Management. 

Does it sometimes feel that your life is an imitation of the life you really want?  Psychotherapy can help you live your most authentic life.  Malca knows that psychotherapy can improve overall life satisfaction as well more serious ailments, because she has 14 years of experience as a psychotherapist and a social worker.

Malca is a Licensed Independent Clinical Social Worker (LC50079200) in the District of Columbia and a Licensed Certified Social Worker-Clinical in the State of Maryland (23121). Malca is a Certified Dialectical Behavior Professional (C-DBT).

Malca has earned her master’s degree in Social Work from Catholic University of America, in Washington, DC and her master’s degree in Liberal Arts from St. John’s College in Annapolis, Maryland.  She completed her  bachelor’s degree in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations from the University of Chicago. 

After graduation with her undergraduate degree, she moved to the Middle East where she worked at an independent think tank that worked to improve the lives of ordinary people, especially families and children.  Her interest in social work grew from this experience.  She is also a substitute teacher in the humanities department at a prestigious private school in Washington, DC.  Her second Masters degree is from St John’s College, a school that focuses on the Great Books.  The dialectical approach and the wisdom of these texts are central to Malca’s view of psychotherapy: Our life is our own to make.  

We live in a competitive world where we are driven by multiple obligations include our career.

This can make us feel that we are trying to get out of a space where we are stuck — a place of anxiety and depression.

Malca’s purpose as a psychotherapist is to help people determine their values, discerns their interests, and set their goals. She works with people who may be feeling routinized, that their future seems blocked by an unsupportive world, people whose intellectual and sexual passions may be frustrated. She knows that through true empathic listening, and a co-created relationship of mutuality, her clients can build a life that makes them happy. While not a specialist in trauma, she deeply understands the day-to-day drip of pain can often feel like trauma and how to talk about it.

Malca’s personality is characterized by calm and patience.  She is deeply insightful about people as she draws on a rich background of life experience.  She works from theory bases that emphasize relationships and what happens between people over what people do to each other. These include the work of Kohut, Rogers, and Sullivan. Additionally, she refers back to the philosophy that formed the base of these theories, so that we can find the most wisdom from our own growth and development. 

Malca specializes in working with families and individuals seeking a better relationship with their family.  Because the family unit is our “go to” lens to see the world, it is through better understanding our family that we can make some of our greatest progress.  Often, Malca works with individuals who want to change family dynamics that they feel may be working against them.   

Additionally, the intergenerational transmission of trauma is something ever-present in many people’s lives and can contribute to the feeling of being stuck.  

She has extensive work with Anxiety and Depression, preferring to take a non-directive approach.  By creating a supportive environment, she is able to help clients decide how they can best proceed.  

Malca has lived in Washington, DC since 2000 and her family has roots in the city.  She understands that the rapid changes in the city and the fast paced, competitive nature of the city can leave people struggling to create a balanced existence.  She knows that psychotherapy can help us achieve our goals and live in greater harmony by finding our inner resources and uncovering our true, happy selves. 

Megan aims to help individuals find their authentic selves and develop the confidence to convey their true selves to the world.

Oftentimes, we lose sight of what we truly want for ourselves. Megan’s goal is to empower you to focus on your own experiences rather than on what others expect of you. Born and raised in the Washington Metro area, Megan understands firsthand how the stress of the DMV lifestyle can affect one’s personal life, work life and home life.  Clients describe Megan as being creative, quirky, empathetic and reliable. 

Megan is a Licensed Professional Counselor (PRC15421). She has seven years of experience helping children and adults work through behavioral and emotional struggles related to depression, PTSD, grief, substance abuse, eating disorders, body image, anxiety, family and sexuality. In addition, she has experience working with children diagnosed with a range of learning disabilities, Autism and Asperger’s. Megan is trained in Dialectical Behavioral Therapy and incorporates various theoretical approaches to help you address any unfinished business that interferes with you being your whole self. Through this work, you will begin the process of self-acceptance and develop control over your behaviors and choices. Megan utilizes creative techniques that allow clients to break out of old patterns of behaviors that keep them from thriving and uncover new perspectives and solutions for issues that they may be facing. Emboldening clients to exercise creativity allows them to develop the confidence to seek new ways to develop their patterns of thinking, believing and doing into more successful, beneficial ways of being.  

Megan earned her master’s degree in clinical counseling from Johns Hopkins University and her bachelor’s degree in psychology from Syracuse University. 

Are you feeling stuck, overwhelmed by emotions, or unsure of how to move forward? Do you find it hard to cope with life’s challenges, whether they are rooted in past trauma or present stress? You’re not alone, and I’m here to help you make sense of your feelings, no matter how complex they seem.

When life feels heavy, it’s easy to feel lost in a cycle of sadness, anxiety, frustration, or fear. But there is hope. Therapy offers a space to explore those emotions, discover healthier coping mechanisms, and begin the process of healing and self-understanding. Imagine feeling empowered to face life’s difficulties with resilience and confidence — that’s the journey we can embark on together.

As a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) and Licensed Graduate Professional Counselor (LGPC), I specialize in providing compassionate, client-centered therapy tailored to your unique needs. I believe you are the expert on your life, and my role is to offer the tools and support needed to help you navigate challenges and achieve your personal goals. Whether you are dealing with trauma, anxiety, family dynamics, or simply need a safe space to process emotions, we’ll work together to add to your mental health toolbox — from understanding your triggers to developing practical strategies for change.

With experience spanning from K-12 school counseling to adult clinical therapy, I’ve worked with clients across the lifespan, which gives me a deep understanding of how life’s different stages shape our emotional experiences. My approach combines person-centered therapy with techniques from play therapy and trauma-informed care, psychoeducation, and family systems to create a safe, non-judgmental space where you can feel heard and supported.

Let’s talk about your story and where you want to go from here. Change doesn’t happen overnight, but your willingness to seek therapy is the first step toward healing. I look forward to working with you and helping you create a life filled with clarity, balance, and growth.