Jen Terrell | Neurodiverse Couples Specialist

At a Glance: My Journey & Experience

• Specialist in Neurodiverse Processing & Communication – Helps partners navigate differences in sensitivity, sensory load, and emotional expression, fostering connection across neurotypes.

  
  

• Trauma-Informed, Nervous-System-Centered – Prioritizes regulation before resolution so communication and repair can actually land.

• Autism, ADHD, and Highly Sensitive Person (HSP)–Informed Care – Helps clients understand their sensitivity, manage sensory and emotional overload, and develop regulation tools that make daily life and relationships more sustainable.
  

• 28 Years Married – Brings long-term partnership perspective to real-world issues like rupture, repair, routines, and seasons of closeness/distance.
  

• Mother of Four – Parent of four children (ages 13 to 17) with decades of lived experience; helps parents understand behavior through a sensory and regulation lens and build connection through practical routines and repair.

• Culturally & Biculturally Fluent (Korean/American) – Welcomes bicultural families, immigrants, and intergenerational dynamics; builds bridges without forcing assimilation.

• Betrayal & Trust Repair – Experienced in helping couples recover from relational injuries (ranging from major betrayals to quiet accumulations of hurt).

Healing for Neurodiverse Couples

Welcome! I believe that every neurodiverse couple needs a clear, repeatable way to stay connected without burning out. 

My approach is to translate different communication styles, reduce avoidable overload, and design a rhythm of togetherness and solitude that keeps both partners regulated enough to connect.

Partners often speak different “native languages”—one may be more literal, direct, and energy‑limited; the other more inferential, fast‑paced, and socially tuned. 

We’ll get specific about time (how you start/stop, transition, and reunite), communication (how bids are sent and received), and environment (sensory factors that either drain or refuel), with an eye on roles, fairness, and repair. 

Here are core practices we’ll build together:

• Communication mapping & translation: turn missed bids into clear asks; bridge literal ↔ inferential styles; agree on scripts and hand signals for “I’m flooding” and “please be concrete.”

  
  

• Time design: set a predictable cadence of together/alone; use “parallel play” and low‑demand connection; build entry/exit rituals so reunions don’t derail.

• Sensory‑aware connection: plan dates and talks around noise/light/texture limits; negotiate eye‑contact and touch preferences; create a quiet‑connection menu.

• Executive‑function scaffolding: externalize plans with shared calendars/boards; define task hand‑offs; use time‑blindness tools and realistic transition buffers.

• Repair rituals: slow down escalations with step‑by‑step time‑outs; separate intent from impact; use brief apology/repair templates and scheduled do‑overs.

• Role clarity & fairness: make invisible labor visible; rebalance loads in weekly check‑ins; document “how we do it” for recurring friction points.

• Intimacy agreements: map bids for affection/sexuality; create a pressure‑free intimacy menu and consent signals so closeness feels safe, not demanding.

Who I Work With

If you’re seeking a relational, trauma-informed, nervous-system-centered approach—and you want practical steps that protect the dignity of both partners—you’re in the right place.

• Neurodiverse couples and individuals who want to better understand their brains and strengthen their connection.

  
  

• Partners caught in protest–withdraw, collapse–escalate, or silence–pursuit cycles

• Highly sensitive clients who feel overwhelmed or chronically misunderstood

• Couples facing communication breakdowns and trust ruptures

• Families navigating bicultural, immigrant, and intergenerational dynamics

If you want a relational, trauma‑informed, nervous‑system‑centered approach—with practical steps that protect the dignity of both partners—I’d be honored to work with you.

Personal Story

Between Worlds (Bicultural Roots)

I’m the first‑generation daughter of a Korean immigrant mother and an American father. From the start, I translated more than words—decoding emotion, catching the rules no one said out loud, and learning how to belong in two cultures that didn’t always speak to each other.

Fluent in the Unsaid (Alexithymic Parent)

In our home, the loudest things were often unspoken. My dad—late‑identified with alexithymia—showed love in steady, practical ways, but emotional words rarely appeared. I became fluent in tone, timing, and tension. In sessions, that means I track micro‑shifts in breath, eyes, and posture so people feel understood even before the words come. I help partners name what they’re experiencing without shame or minimization, so truth lands without doing more harm.

Highly Sensitive, Not Fragile (HSP)

As a kid, I over‑functioned—anticipating needs, smoothing conflict, and carrying more than I could hold. Adulthood asked me to refine that sensitivity into a strength. Today I honor bandwidth, set clear boundaries, and use sensitivity as a precise instrument for connection. In practice, we pace the work to what your nervous systems can actually tolerate and design environments—sensory, time, and tasks—that support connection rather than sabotage it.

(If HSP is new—or you’d like a quick read and a brief screener—here’s a short guide.

Twenty‑Eight Years Married

I’ve been married for 28 years. Long‑term love isn’t a straight line; it moves through seasons. I’ve lived chapters of deep connection and chapters that required grit, mercy, humor, and repair. That history shapes my lens. I respect the real cycle of closeness, distance, rupture, and repair. I focus on daily design—routines, roles, and transitions—that make safety repeatable. My hope is honest, not naïve: change is possible when it’s practiced, not just promised. And I carry a bias toward repair in real time rather than perfection in theory.

Steady When Sessions Feel Intense

Couples therapy can feel pressure‑filled—voices tighten, bodies brace, and it can seem like everything is on the line. This is a space where I feel at home. Years of leading through real‑world crises taught me how to stay calm, keep dignity intact, and guide two good people back to each other when the moment feels impossible. In the room, I slow reactivity so thinking can return, I name the pattern that’s hijacking the conversation, and I help you find the next caring step you can actually do.

From Othering to Belonging

Growing up in a Northern California suburb, I often felt like an outsider—present but out of sync. That experience sharpened my empathy for anyone who feels “too much,” “too little,” or simply “different.” In couples work, that becomes bridge‑building: not assimilation to one partner’s style, but a third way where both people are understood and supported.

Why This Matters in Therapy

This background means I translate across neurotypes and cultures so messages land as intended. I privilege nervous‑system reality over willpower so change is sustainable. And I protect the dignity of both partners while we practice new moves in the room.

What to Expect in Session

Clients describe my style as warm, steady, and clear. I am direct without shaming and structured without being rigid.

We will name what is actually happening between you, not just what you wish were happening. We will practice in the room so you don’t have to build new habits alone at home. We will keep an eye on sensory load, processing speed, and executive‑function bandwidth so that plans are doable, not performative.

And when repairs are needed, we will do them well—at a pace your bodies can tolerate—so trust has a chance to grow again.

Neurodiversity & Identity

I’m proud to be neurodiverse. 

I’m unequivocally a Highly Sensitive Person (HSP), and—when you look through the lens of how autism often presents in women—my profile includes strong autistic traits alongside very high camouflaging. That matches my lived experience: I feel deeply, notice quickly, and learned early to “blend in” to keep connection. I also experience meaningful sensory differences, so I pay close attention to sound, light, and tactile load—for myself and for my clients. 

Because I’m wired this way, I intuitively understand the push–pull dynamics many neurodiverse couples face, and I know how to translate, pace, and design safety so both partners can actually meet.

Parenting Across Neurotypes

I love being a mom of four precious children—ages 27 to 13. 

Parenting four different humans taught me more about neurodiversity than any textbook. Each child brought a distinct nervous system, sensory profile, and way of connecting. Strategies that soothed one could overwhelm another. I learned—sometimes the hard way—that what looks like “defiance” or “avoidance” is often a nervous system protecting itself from overload. 

I also learned that the same moment can require very different responses: one child needed quiet and deep pressure to come back online; another needed movement and a time‑boxed plan; a third needed humor and a snack before words; a fourth needed space and a predictable check‑in. That lived education is the backbone of my work with parents.

In my work with parents, I translate behavior through a regulation and sensory lens, build routines that actually fit a family’s bandwidth, and protect connection while setting clear, sustainable boundaries. Structure and tenderness are not opposites; they’re partners.

• Decode: meltdown vs. shutdown; sensory overload vs. “oppositional”; lagging skills vs. willful refusal.

• Design: mornings, transitions, homework flow, screen‑time limits, and recovery plans after overwhelm.

• Co‑regulate: simple scripts, breath/grounding cues, sensory kits, and repair rituals after conflict.

• Boundaries: a few clear rules, visual cues, choices inside limits, and plans for high‑stress moments.

Special Focus: Betrayal Healing

Betrayal shows up in every relationship in one form or another—sometimes large and obvious, sometimes quiet and cumulative. However it appears, it wounds safety and reshapes the story two people tell about each other. 

My focus is to slow reactivity, put clear words to the harm, and build a steady, compassionate repair process that honors truth, restores safety, and rebuilds trust over time. This work is careful and paced to what bodies can tolerate; it’s not performative, and it’s not rushed.

Training & Approaches

My work is grounded in relational neuroscience—the brain is social and changes through co‑regulation. Insight matters, but change sticks through repeated, attuned moments of safety.

I integrate:

• Psychobiological Approach to Couples Therapy (PACT) — reference: PACT Institute

• Internal Family Systems (parts work) — reference: IFS Institute

• Polyvagal‑informed regulation work — reference: Polyvagal Institute

• Somatic tracking and attunement — reference: Sensorimotor Psychotherapy Institute

• Attachment science for couples (EFT) — reference: ICEEFT

• Trauma‑informed principles — reference: SAMHSA

• Research‑based communication and repair tools — reference: The Gottman Institute

License &Employment Information

• Associate Marriage and Family Therapist, #155583

• Supervised by Dr. Harry Motro, LMFT #53452

• Employed by New Path Family of Therapy Centers