Mary Jennifer Meister, LCSW

Mary Jennifer "MJ" Meister is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW) practicing in Illinois with 17 years of clinical experience as an individual, family, and marriage counselor. She supports people through a wide range of challenges, including depression, anxiety, stress, relationship difficulties, parenting struggles, career transitions, ADHD, and experiences of sexual, physical, or emotional trauma.

MJ brings a warm, down-to-earth, and interactive style to therapy. She emphasizes a whole-person perspective that honors emotional life, physical well-being, and an individual sense of meaning or spirituality. Her aim is to help clients feel more at home in their own skin and to help internal experience align with how they show up in the world.

She is known for offering respect, compassion, honesty, and a practical, commonsense approach to problem solving. Her clinical toolkit includes cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), solution-focused strategies, EMDR, and appropriate use of humor. MJ believes that small shifts in perspective - and sometimes a laugh - can open the door to meaningful change.

MJ also provides EMDR, a trauma-focused method designed to help people process painful memories and reduce lingering emotional reactions when talking alone has not resolved them. For telehealth clients, she notes that remote work can feel surprisingly personal; responses through the platform are not instant like texting and she generally replies within 24 hours. Phone and video sessions are available by appointment. She looks forward to walking alongside people as they make the changes they are ready to make.