Jennifer Dorsey, LMFT
Part-Time Faculty
jdorsey@wi.edu
Pronouns: she/her

BS Marketing - Santa Clara University, 1994
MA Counseling Psychology - The Wright Institute, 2017

Professor Dorsey is a Licensed Marriage Family Therapist who approaches her work through a systemic lens, uses psychodynamic case conceptualization and emphasizes a relational approach in her work with children/adolescents, romantic partners/families, and adults. She often explores the impact of multigenerational trauma in her client’s lives and honors their ensuing resiliency. She values somatic awareness and polyvagal theory as resources to highlight and regulate her client’s physiological responses to stress and trauma. Working with children has deepened her use of attachment theory with clients of all ages. Recently, she has been focusing on partners and couples therapy, utilizing her training in Emotionally Focused Therapy to explore the dynamic interactions of adult attachment needs.

Professor Dorsey helps clients explore the larger societal systems that impact their resources and mental health, explicitly acknowledging the strengths and stressors of communities navigating systems of oppression. She is committed to her own ongoing developmental growth and awareness of intersectionality and privilege in her roles as psychotherapist, supervisor, instructor, and academic advisor.

Professor Dorsey’s past experience includes working with children, adolescents, and families in school and home settings, emphasizing strengths-based and culturally-minded assessment to address experiences of acculturation, community crisis and traumatic events, grief and loss, neglect and abuse, PTSD, ADHD, depression, and substance use. She is trained in Restorative Justice, and implemented school site restorative and trauma-informed practices, as well as interventions addressing vicarious trauma for school staff. She is experienced coordinating therapy with systems of care across foster care, legal advocacy, and wraparound services.

Professor Dorsey delivers clinical training in community mental health settings on topics addressing implicit bias, power and privilege, and rupture and repair. She provides secondary supervision at the California Institute of Integral Studies Psychological Services Center.

Professor Dorsey stresses the role of self care with her students and pursues her own sense of balance by hiking solo in the woods and building memories at the dinner table with her family.

Professional Memberships
American Psychological Association
California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists (CAMFT)
Gaylesta | The LGBTQ Psychotherapy Association
International Centre for Excellence in Emotionally Focused Therapy (ICEEFT)