Jason Tackett

My Approach

“Walking one another home” illustrates my approach to the work that clients and I do together. I think of home as the place where a life journey begins and ends, as well as an experience we can locate within ourselves along the way. Home is where our knowing resides, where our power source lives, where our healing center operates, and where our resources listen for their invitation to be shared in service of the whole. This is the Self energy of Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy.

I support clients in exploring how they use their energy (i.e., how they act and react) in relating to self, others, work, life, etc., and examining through honest and thoughtful consideration the ways in which their actions are or are not serving them. I bring a deep presence, a noticing ear, and a gentle voice of reflection. I bring a keen eye for the inner and outer dangers that invite us to get lost on our walk; I recognize the difference between a pattern and a process, interrupting the former and supporting the latter. I am a collaborative spirit in support of my client finding their own path through. Because of my own lived experience with walking to and from home, I bring humility, courage, and confidence in the journey.

Home will, and perhaps must, be left time and time again as we journey out and have and learn from our experiences – the beauties and joys, the tragedies and traumas – collecting information from each and using it all to serve ourselves, one another, and the whole of which each of us is a part. I believe real and meaningful change within these experiences happens through presence, reflection, willingness, planning, and arriving at a safe enough place within oneself to risk change and enable the efforts and vulnerability it takes to engage in change.

And so, together we walk home to the space within where we can embody safety to feel, heal, and accept integrative and regenerative rest for the walk of our lives.

About Jason Tackett

I began my journey as a clinical mental health counselor in 2020 after a 20-year career as a special education teacher working with emotional and behavioral issues. The transition to counseling felt natural and well-aligned in so many rich and meaningful ways. I have used (and continue to use) my life experiences as my teachers, and I have done (and am doing) my work to (continually) come more into myself. When I think of how to sum up my philosophy, a quote by Ram Dass comes to mind: “We’re all just walking each other home.” To me, this means coming home to ourselves and uncovering our wholeness, restoring the connection to it, and living from that place. I visualize my client sessions as walks together and I recognize the invitation to walk with another (my client) as a great privilege – one I approach with deep gratitude. 

I have trained in different models of therapy and feel most called to Internal Family Systems (IFS) for its power in connecting us to the many parts that make up the whole of us, creating relationships and communication within our internal systems, and through doing so, living with greater harmony with Self and others. My own experience with IFS was healing and transformative. My history of growing up queer in a hyper religious family in the conservative Bible Belt resulted in a deep disconnect with my own wholeness for many years. Through connecting with the parts of me I’d exiled and the overworked parts of me that had been forced into roles to protect me, I was able to come to know myself in new and important ways and to do some deep healing that I’d only touched on in life and therapeutic experiences before. I have learned from books, professional schooling, so many people showing up as messengers in my life, living abroad, indigenous practices, the many great teachers I’ve had, my own walk, and those walks I have shared with others. I bring all of my life experiences to my walks and I listen for and welcome those of my client, that their internal wisdom may guide us on our path together. 

In addition to my clinical work, I enjoy public speaking and presenting on Hakomi practices, the Internal Family Systems (IFS) model, mindfulness and presence, emotional wellness, self-compassion, personal empowerment, and strengths-based approaches to address behavioral issues. When not at work, I enjoy mindfully strolling through botanical gardens, capturing life’s moments through street photography, experiencing the live arts through Broadway performances, delighting in the curious behaviors of my cats and chickens, and getting lost in the storytelling of Nigerian novels.