Jean Tracy, Ph.D.

As a solution-focused therapist, my goal is to help you uncover your true potential and lead a life that is worth celebrating. While we can't change difficult situations in our past, we can work together to better understand and resolve challenges in your life. By applying complementary therapy approaches and techniques, we will unearth long-standing behavior patterns or negative perceptions that may be holding you back from experiencing a more fulfilling and meaningful life.

Dr. Jean Tracy is a licensed clinical psychologist specializing in individual, couples and family therapy. She is in private practice in Elmhurst, Illinois and sees clients from throughout the Chicago area.

Dr. Tracy is an interactive, solution-focused therapist. She provides support and practical feedback to help clients effectively address personal life challenges. She integrates complementary methodologies and techniques with current evidence based psychotherapy. With compassion and understanding, she works with each individual to help build on strengths and to attain personal growth.

With over thirty-one years experience as a therapist, she believes each individual wants uniquely chosen options to best solve the issues, heal trauma and relationships, repair damaged self esteem, or manage stress. . Each person who seeks treatment is asked what would work best. Some say they need a person who will listen objectively, others seek a certain expertise known to assist a specific concern, such as cognitive therapy for anxiety or depression. Most people have expressed a desire for a person who interacts with them, who gives feedback, offers new strategies, is nonjudgmental, and really listens. As part of a cognitive style, a therapist is a collaborator with the person seeking relief. In this collaboration, hope can be established quickly, in the first session by helping a person get immediate relief such as teaching a way to go to sleep quickly and awaken refreshed.

This way of working to find quick, effective solutions for immediate stress reduction is also called solution focused therapy. "The more I talk about what is depressing me, the more depressed I get," a client expressed. I said that is why solution focused therapy spends less time on the problems(unless for an individual, the person believes the best way to healing is to pour out all the traumas and pain to an empathic listener since no one else has taken her/him seriously or validated the suffering). Others may prefer finding a strength and resources to achieve their goals and moving forward, rather than looking behind and feeling stuck. A person who is spiritual or religious may want to access that source of strength. For example, a child with multiple food allergies was not following the special diet he needed to stay well. He liked Bible stories, so I pointed out Daniel in the Old Testament, who got put in a lion's den for following a special, pure diet. This Bible story helped the child develop courage to follow his necessary diet. Not all people want to include religion or spirituality. I respect that preference and offer the expertise of psychotherapy without imposing a spiritual perspective.

People say that I am warm, easy to talk with, and helpful in relieving anxiety, depression, relationship conflict and offering new ways to become healthier.

In addition to more traditional methods of therapy, such as cognitive/behavioral, Dr. Tracy incorporates adjunctive tools, such as hypnotherapy (she is a member of the American Sociaty of Clinical Hypnosis) and yoga meditation and movements (she is a Certified Kundalini Yoga Teacher). Explanation is given of how such tools can assist in quicker resolution of certain difficulties, and a person may choose to use them along with the other coping skills, such as problem solving, emotional regulation, positive self talk and life re-scripting.

. Education
Dr. Tracy earned both her B.A.(1962) and Ph.D.(1971) from Texas Christian University.

License, Certifications & Awards
Dr. Tracy has been a licensed clinical psychologist in Illinois since1981.
She has been named a distinguished faculty member in 1972, at Elmhurst College, where she taught psychology as a professor.
She was named an outstanding educator in 1993, by the students of Forrest Institute of Professional Psychology, where she was a clinical professor.

Additional Training
Dr. Tracy stays up to date on research such as evidence based treatment efficacy, and innovative methods, such as the groundbreaking work by the Gottman's on successful couples therapy and Sue Johnson, Ph.D. on application of attachment dynamics for effective relationship repair.

Major advances in positive psychology and neuroscience teach how to 'rewire the brain for happiness" such as provided by Dan Siegel, M.D. and Rick Hanson, Ph.D.
Professional Activities and Memberships

Member, American Psychological Association
Member, Illinois Psychological Association
Member, American Society of Clinical Hypnosis