Jason Duenas
Therapy should be useful in your actual life.
I’m Jason Duenas. I work with couples and individuals who want to understand what keeps happening and do something different with it. I’ll listen closely, tell you what I’m seeing, and help you put what we talk about into practice outside the session.
Yes, I’ll interrupt sometimes
I’m not going to watch the same argument happen for an hour and call that therapy.
I’ll slow things down, tell you what I’m seeing, and help both of you stay in the conversation.
I may ask one of you to pause because the other person is already gone from the conversation. I may check what somebody actually heard, because it is often different from what was said. There are also times I’ll name the thing everybody can feel but nobody has said yet.
I want each of you to feel understood. That doesn’t mean pretending every action carries the same responsibility, especially when trust has been broken.
Structure without the script
I use the Gottman Method because it gives us something solid to work from.
A thorough assessment helps us understand the relationship before we decide what to work on.
The framework gives us useful ways to work with conflict, friendship, intimacy, and shared meaning. Your relationship is not a score, though. I’m not interested in handing you an exercise because it happens to be next in a workbook. The method helps me understand the two people in front of me. It does not replace them.
Part of my job is to work myself out of a job. I want you to catch the pattern sooner and know what to do when a conversation gets difficult. The tools need to work when I’m not in the room.
Gottman Method Level 3 trained
This is the main framework I use to assess relationships and work with conflict, friendship, intimacy, and shared meaning.
13+ years across varied settings
I’ve worked in psychiatric hospital, residential, nonprofit, and private-practice settings.
Licensed in
FL · TX · UT · AZ
I’m a Licensed Professional Counselor–Supervisor (LPC-S) in Texas and offer individual supervision to LPC Associates working toward independent licensure.
For Texas LPC Associates
I enjoy the part of this work that happens between clinicians.
Over the years, I’ve had opportunities to help other therapists think through difficult cases, both formally and informally.
I like slowing the work down, asking good questions, and helping another clinician become more confident without trying to turn them into a version of me. Offering LPC supervision is a more formal way to make room for something I’ve already found meaningful.
Read about working with meWhat experience has taught me
I’ve learned not to rush the parts of therapy that take time.
Not every session needs to look neat for the work to be moving.
Some sessions are intense. Some problems do not resolve quickly. Over time, I’ve gotten better at noticing when we need to slow down, when I need to be more direct, and when a tool that looked good on paper is doing nothing for the people in front of me. I’m not there to perform expertise at you. I’m there to use it.
The person outside the office
I do have a life outside the therapy room.
I’m married and a father of three young children—a son and two daughters—so life outside work is full. I enjoy reading, although I don’t get to do nearly as much of it as I used to. I travel when I can and play around on guitar, drums, and keyboard. “Play around” is probably the honest phrase.
I also dance salsa and bachata. I met my wife on a dance floor in the Dominican Republic, so it’s a little more than a hobby for me. I’m telling you this because I don’t want an About page that reads like a résumé. You’re meeting with a person.
See if this feels like a fit
If the way I work sounds like what you need, you can request an intake.
Couples can request the 100-minute couples intake. If you are coming on your own, choose the individual intake instead.