Jillian Ellison, Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist

Clinical Authority

Meet Jillian Ellison

Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist • EMDRIA Certified Therapist™ • PhD Student in Industrial–Organizational Psychology

Clinical authority is not only what I know. It is the capacity to stay present when complexity enters the room.

I work at the intersection of trauma, relationships, sexuality, power, and leadership. My foundation is relational systems therapy. My advanced clinical work centers trauma processing. My doctoral training extends that same lens into leaders and organizations.

View my foundation Explore ways to work together
California Licensure LMFT 156597 Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist
EMDRIA Certified Therapist credential EMDRIA Certified Credential ID 170620423
Clinical Education M.A. Clinical Psychology Pepperdine University
Doctoral Study I–O Psychology PhD student • Executive Coaching specialty focus

Professional Development

Memberships, training, and credentials in progress.

Sex Therapy Education MSTI Sex Therapy Program Enrolled in the AASECT Certified Sex Therapist pathway. Formal sexuality education and credential requirements are in progress.

Professional memberships, directory listings, program enrollment, and credential work in progress are not interchangeable with certification. Jillian is an EMDRIA Certified Therapist™. She is not yet an AASECT Certified Sex Therapist® or a Board Certified Coach (BCC). Each credentialing body independently reviews and awards its credential after all applicable requirements are met.

Individual. Relationship. System.

One systems lens, practiced at three scales.

My education has not moved in unrelated directions. Each layer expands the same inquiry: how people heal, how they relate, and how they hold influence and responsibility.

01 Internal Authority

Self

Trauma therapy, EMDR, FLASH, and extended-format intensives address unresolved memory, embodied survival responses, shame, and disrupted self-trust.

Explore Healing the Self 02 Relational Authority

Relationships

My LMFT lens includes attachment, intimacy, sexuality, consent, boundaries, repair, and the ways people navigate power without abandoning connection or themselves.

Explore Transforming Relationships 03 Collective Authority

Systems

Industrial–organizational psychology extends the lens into leader development, leadership coaching, change, psychological safety, succession, relational impact, and organizational culture.

Explore Shaping Systems
  • Safety
  • Trust
  • Power
  • Choice
  • Connection
  • Agency

These are not separate topics. They are the capacities through which people heal, relationships change, and systems become more humane.

How I hold the work

Depth requires more than technique.

Effective therapy and coaching depend on how knowledge, pacing, relationship, context, and power are held together.

01

Structured

Clear contracting, assessment, conceptualization, sequencing, and goals create a dependable container for complex work.

02

Embodied

We attend to nervous-system activation, shutdown, sensation, and the body cues that often arrive before language.

03

Relational

Attachment, trust, boundaries, communication, rupture, and repair are part of how change becomes durable.

04

Power-Conscious

Authority, consent, choice, impact, and accountability are examined rather than left operating invisibly.

We do not chase catharsis. We build capacity, then we process.

Professional Foundation

Education, training, development, and scope.

The details are available for those who want them, without requiring every visitor to read a full professional biography before finding the service that fits.

01 Licensure & Education
  • Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, California LMFT 156597
  • EMDRIA Certified Therapist™ , Credential ID 170620423
  • Master of Arts in Clinical Psychology, Pepperdine University
  • Bachelor of Science in Dietetics, University of Northern Colorado
  • PhD student in Industrial–Organizational Psychology, Walden University, with an Executive Coaching specialty focus
02 EMDR & Advanced Trauma Training
  • EMDR Basic Training through EMDR Consulting, Roy Kiessling model
  • Flash Technique, advanced trauma-processing adjunct
  • EMDR for Moral Injury
  • EMDR Early Intervention & Crisis Response, including EEI Suites
  • Psychological First Aid
  • EMDR Treatment of Complex PTSD
  • EMDR-AIP Intervention for Adult Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse
  • Engaging Teens’ Protective Parts

These trainings inform pacing, stabilization, target sequencing, dissociation awareness, and adaptation when clients feel flooded, shut down, highly avoidant, or stuck in entrenched survival patterns.

Explore Trauma, EMDR, FLASH & Intensives

03 Clinical Experience & Populations

Jillian’s clinical background includes residential and outpatient settings supporting addiction recovery, co-occurring conditions, trauma-related complexity, and high-acuity stabilization needs.

  • High-functioning professionals and caregivers carrying chronic responsibility
  • Veterans and military-connected clients navigating moral injury and trauma
  • Medical personnel and first responders processing cumulative exposure and loss
  • Complex and developmental trauma, attachment injury, and chronic shame
  • Persistent grief, identity disruption, relational looping, and life transitions
  • Trauma and attachment patterns that may sustain substance use or relapse risk
04 Sex Therapy Education & Relational Specialty Development

Jillian’s LMFT foundation includes work at the individual, couple, and family-system levels. She is an AASECT Member and is enrolled in the Modern Sex Therapy Institutes Sex Therapy Program through its AASECT Certified Sex Therapist pathway.

Formal sexuality education and credential requirements are in progress. Jillian does not represent herself as an AASECT Certified Sex Therapist® unless and until AASECT independently awards that certification.

The developing specialty addresses sexual trauma and erotic agency, intimacy and desire, kink/BDSM-affirming care, consensual nonmonogamy and polyamory, LGBTQIA+ relationships, attachment, communication, boundaries, consent, power, and repair.

Non-pathologizing position: Consensual kink and BDSM are not presumed to be symptoms of trauma or pathology. Clinical attention remains on consent, coercion, safety, meaning, function, relational impact, and each client’s stated goals.

Explore Intimacy, Sexuality & Relationship Work

05 Leadership Coaching & Organization Development

Jillian’s doctoral curriculum includes Leadership Coaching: Theories, Concepts, and Processes and Leadership and Leader Development. Her I–O psychology lens examines the leader, the relationships around the leader, and the organizational conditions shaping performance and impact.

Her coaching profile is relational, contextual, psychologically informed, and evidence-guided. It is designed for high-responsibility leaders who want to examine intention and impact, expand behavioral range, and translate beneath-the-surface patterns into purposeful workplace action.

  • Leader identity, authority, communication, delegation, conflict, and role transitions
  • Psychological safety, feedback, stakeholder relationships, and culture
  • Change leadership, succession readiness, inclusive leadership, and organizational development
  • Workplace experiments, accountability, assessment, and sustained behavior change
  • Board Certified Coach (BCC) credential development across ethics, agreements and goals, coach presence, communication and rapport, growth and accountability, and professional practice

Jillian is a member of the Organization Development Network and is completing BCC credential requirements. She is not yet a Board Certified Coach.

Explore Executive Coaching & Leadership Development

06 Therapy, Coaching & Consultation Boundaries

Psychotherapy, executive coaching, and professional consultation are distinct services. Scope, documentation, confidentiality, goals, sponsor communication, and expectations are clarified before work begins.

  • Psychotherapy is provided within Jillian’s California LMFT scope and follows clinical assessment and treatment planning.
  • Executive coaching is a non-therapy service focused on leadership, authority, responsibility, relational impact, behavior, and organizational life.
  • Clinician consultation is professional education and case consultation for EMDR-trained clinicians; it is not psychotherapy.

Jillian’s clinical background supports recognition of when a coaching concern may require referral or parallel treatment. It does not turn coaching into therapy or remove the need for explicit scope boundaries.

Professional consultation for clinicians

Choose the doorway that fits the work.

Healing the self, transforming relationships, and shaping systems begin in different places, but they are held by the same foundations.

Healing the Self Transforming Relationships Shaping Systems

EMDR-trained clinician? View professional consultation →