Welcoming Jennifer Hansen & Expanding Geriatric Counseling in Colorado Springs

Welcome Jennifer Hansen, LPCC, to Dynamic Counseling

We are excited to welcome Jennifer Hansen, LPCC, to the team at Dynamic Counseling in Colorado Springs.

Jennifer brings a thoughtful, grounded approach to therapy and a strong belief that meaningful change begins with greater awareness of ourselves, our patterns, and the experiences that have shaped us.

She works with adults navigating anxiety, depression, trauma, relationship challenges, grief, low self-worth, and major life transitions. Jennifer also represents an important expansion of our work at Dynamic Counseling: increasing access to counseling and mental health support for older adults and their families in Colorado Springs.

Expanding Geriatric Mental Health Care in Colorado Springs

One of the things we are most excited about with Jennifer joining Dynamic Counseling is the opportunity to expand our geriatric counseling and older adult mental health services.

Mental health needs do not disappear as we age. In fact, older adulthood can bring an entirely new set of emotional, relational, medical, and practical challenges.

Older adults may be navigating:

• Grief after the death of a spouse, family member, or close friend

• Loss of independence or changes in physical abilities

• Retirement and changes in identity or purpose

• Chronic illness or new medical diagnoses

• Anxiety about health, aging, or the future

• Depression, loneliness, and social isolation

• Changes in family roles and relationships

• Becoming dependent on adult children or other caregivers

• Moving from a longtime home into assisted living or another level of care

• Adjusting to significant changes in daily routines

• Processing earlier life experiences or trauma

• Questions about meaning, purpose, legacy, and mortality

These transitions can be profound. Yet older adults are sometimes expected to simply accept them as a normal part of aging.

We don’t believe emotional suffering should be dismissed because someone is getting older.

Counseling for Older Adults Is About More Than Aging

Geriatric counseling is not simply talking about getting older.

Older adults bring decades of relationships, experiences, accomplishments, losses, responsibilities, and memories into the therapy room. Sometimes counseling is about coping with something happening right now. Other times, reaching a new stage of life creates space to reflect on experiences that may have never been fully processed.

Therapy can provide a place to grieve losses while still recognizing what remains meaningful.

It can help someone adapt to changing circumstances without losing their sense of identity.

It can also provide something that many older adults simply don’t have enough of: a consistent, confidential relationship where the focus is entirely on their emotional well-being.

Jennifer’s relational and individualized approach makes her a strong addition to our work with older adults.

Supporting Families and Caregivers, Too

Aging rarely affects only one person.

Adult children may suddenly find themselves helping parents manage appointments, transportation, finances, medical decisions, or changes in living arrangements. Spouses may become caregivers. Families may disagree about what level of support is needed or how decisions should be made.

These situations can bring enormous stress, even in close families.

Expanding our geriatric services allows Dynamic Counseling to better support the broader family system as well.

Counseling can help families navigate caregiver stress, anticipatory grief, changing family roles, boundaries, difficult conversations, and the complicated emotions that often accompany caring for an aging parent or spouse.

Our goal is to approach this stage of life with the same depth and respect we bring to every other stage of development.

Increasing Access to Mental Health Care Across the Lifespan

Dynamic Counseling has continued to grow because we want people in Colorado Springs to have access to specialized care without having to fit themselves into a one-size-fits-all model of therapy.

Expanding our work with older adults is an important part of that mission.

Our team already works with children, teens, adults, couples, and families. With Jennifer joining us, we are intentionally strengthening our ability to serve people at the other end of the lifespan as well.

Whether someone is 8, 38, or 88, they deserve mental health care that recognizes the complexity of their story.

Jennifer’s Approach to Therapy

Jennifer’s approach is grounded in Gestalt therapy and integrates Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT).

Gestalt therapy focuses on helping people become more aware of what they are experiencing in the present moment, including emotions, thoughts, behaviors, relationships, and patterns that may have developed in response to earlier experiences.

Rather than simply asking, How do I make this feeling go away? therapy can create space to ask deeper questions:

• What is this feeling trying to tell me?

• Where did this pattern begin?

• What have I learned to believe about myself?

• How have my relationships and experiences shaped me?

• What matters to me at this stage of my life?

• Is the way I learned to cope still serving me today?

Jennifer helps clients explore these questions with curiosity while also developing practical strategies for change.

Her work with CBT can help clients recognize unhelpful thought and behavior patterns, challenge beliefs that may no longer be accurate, and practice new ways of responding to difficult situations.

Counseling for Anxiety, Depression, Trauma, and Life Transitions

People often begin counseling because something in their lives is no longer working.

Sometimes that looks like persistent anxiety or depression. Other times it shows up as difficulty setting boundaries, grief, repeating unhealthy relationship patterns, feeling responsible for everyone else, struggling with self-criticism, or realizing that old experiences continue to influence present-day choices.

Jennifer works collaboratively with clients to understand what may be underneath these struggles rather than focusing only on symptoms.

Therapy can help clients develop greater confidence, understand themselves more fully, strengthen relationships, and build a life that feels more aligned with who they are now.

Specialized Training in Suicide Prevention and Intervention

Jennifer also brings specialized training in the Collaborative Assessment and Management of Suicidality (CAMS) and Counseling on Access to Lethal Means (CALM).

These evidence-based approaches provide additional tools for working compassionately and collaboratively with individuals experiencing suicidal thoughts or periods of significant emotional distress.

Jennifer believes people deserve a space where difficult experiences can be discussed openly and without judgment, including the experiences that can be hardest to talk about.

Meet Jennifer

Jennifer earned her Master of Arts in Clinical Mental Health Counseling from Grace College and her bachelor’s degree from the University of Wyoming.

As a Licensed Professional Counselor Candidate in Colorado, she brings warmth, curiosity, and accountability into the counseling relationship. Her work is individualized to each client rather than built around a one-size-fits-all approach.

We are thrilled to have Jennifer joining Dynamic Counseling and especially excited about what her addition means for our ability to provide geriatric counseling and mental health care for older adults in Colorado Springs.

If you or an aging family member is looking for support with depression, anxiety, grief, loneliness, life transitions, caregiver stress, trauma, or the emotional challenges that can accompany aging, Jennifer is currently accepting new clients.

Learn more about Jennifer and schedule an appointment through Dynamic Counseling.