Today we’d like to introduce you to Alex Jacobsen.
Hi Alex, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
As a kid, I grew up and traveled all over the world. My dad’s job moved us from one place to another and ultimately let us live in places such as Korea, Taiwan, Dubai, and Denmark. While living overseas, we took advantage of our proximity to the world to visit that as well. I have been to every continent except for South America and Antarctica which I hope to one day remedy. To say that I have experienced the flavors of the world is an understatement. I was young so I may not have understood the same depth from it that I might have as an adult but I think I took in an entirely different message: every single human being faces the same struggles regardless of where in the world they are. I remember being in Dubai during the worker’s revolt in which they struggled to reduce the number of people per housing unit from 8 to 6. I remember seeing how normalized indentured servitude, and often slavery, was as well. Kids younger than me at the time would yell at their housekeepers and demand things from them in a way that churned my stomach. I visited third-world countries in Europe and Africa that showed me the darker side of the world and how much humanity still struggled to find a foothold.
Shortly before I turned 16, we moved back to the states. This was a huge culture shock for me after having spent my entire adolescence surrounded by other cultures. In forcing me to return to my home country with all this new information, I felt like an outsider. I finished high school in an American education system after having thought I would graduate from the IB system. I made few friends, socialized very little, and spend the better part of those two years wondering what I would do with my life.
I think in hindsight this was the first time I faced true mental health struggles. I was torn from a world I was comfortable in and knew the rules to back to the United States in which things were much different from the lax environment of Europe. It made me come to terms with certain thoughts and values I held and I was either forced to change them or adapt.
I decided to learn more about people, a topic which I had already learned a great deal about from firsthand experience. Instead, I wanted to learn about what science had to say about the same experiences I had seen so I studied Psychology, earning my four-year degree from the University of Texas at Dallas. I spent these four years always contemplating the question of what I would do next. Psychology degrees themselves are very research focused and I always knew that wasn’t the path for me. I graduated still without knowing the answer of what I wanted to do so I took a gap year to work full time and find that very answer.
Six months later I began the application process towards Sam Houston State University to pursue Clinical Mental Health Counseling. I think I always knew that I wanted to speak with people about their struggles but never knew how to monetize this aspect in order to support myself to be able to continuously do it. I have never been interested in money in the way some people are – I find that experience and emotions are much more fulfilling. In discovering that mental health was the field for me, I had to logically argue with myself about what my strongest values were. I wanted to help others and I wanted to do it in a meaningful way. To be a teacher was too vague, to be a doctor was too specific. Mental health afforded me the ability to speak to a variety of people, to share their experiences and my own, and to advocate for individuals’ rights and freedoms in a country that did not yet fully understand this mental world.
Going forward I hope to create a name for myself in the therapeutic field, sharpening my skills and creating my own niche. I have started to find that in an existential approach to what I do, motivated by such individuals as Irvin D. Yalom and Viktor Frankl. I believe that existentialism fits me very well because the lesson I learned from childhood that people are fundamentally the same everywhere speaks to the shared suffering that existentialism says that all humans face.
My goal, for now, is to finish my clinical hours, gain experience in the field, learn all I possibly can, and one day open my own clinic that focuses directly on the niche that I have begun to carve out for myself.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
In many ways, my road has been fairly smooth. My parents had planned for me to go to college from a young age and so I was very lucky to have parents who valued education. This allowed me to attend my first four years debt-free. That opened the path for me to be able to see a Master’s program as more of a reality. Additionally, it was only because of my dad’s job that I was able to have experienced the world in the way I have, so to this I am very grateful.
On the other hand, moving around a lot and always leaving friends behind and making new ones takes a toll. I think once I returned to the US, I was sort of fed up with it. This led me to have a deficit in my support system and ultimately made me feel very lonely. I wasn’t motivated to socialize because I felt like I was so different and this had implications on my motivation to even finish my degrees. Obviously, I overcame those challenges to some degree but I have definitely faced my fair share of struggles.
Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
Our business Ajana Therapy is a mental health clinic whose main focus is inclusivity and acceptance. We definitely include a focus on LGBTQ+ struggles while also dealing with the normal aspects of mental health: depression, anxiety, etc. I was actually Ajana’s first male clinician and I think that speaks to the male representation in mental health in a beautiful way. I think what sets our business apart more than anything is our wide variety of clinicians. We don’t have any bizarre treatments or anything but we absolutely have our fair share of people from different backgrounds, theoretical models, motivations, ages, languages, and now, genders! I am proud of our ability to utilize this to help as many people as possible in the Houston area. Since we are relatively new (under four years) we still need to develop more brand-wise but I am so far proud of our ability to do so as a team. No one person is solely responsible for the message that Ajana Therapy brings (shout out to my boss Jessica for being the large majority though) and we all have our way of contributing to things!
What matters most to you? Why?
Mental health matters most to me. Not just because I’m a therapist but because I truly believe at the core of my being that every single thing that happens in this world is motivated by mental health. Wars, violence, abuse, petty drama, hurt feelings, kindness, love, beauty, art. All of it comes from the same place – emotion. If I have one goal before I die it’s to bring this viewpoint into the mainstream and have my generation be the one to spearhead the idea that no individual is free from their mental health and that we MUST bring it into the light and discuss it objectively otherwise we will continue to be a species that fights amongst themselves instead of flourishing as I know we can.
Pricing:
- Individual Sessions – $100
- Couple’s Session – $115
Contact Info:
- Website: https://ajanatherapy.com/team/alex-jacobsen/
- Instagram: @alexjtherapy
