About Me

 Photograph of Joanne Shurter, MFTI am a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist in private practice, where I work with adult individuals. I have an M.S. in Clinical Psychology as well as post-graduate certificates in psychoanalytic psychotherapy.   I am an active member of local and national psychotherapist communities. My practice borders the San Jose, Los Gatos, Santa Clara, and Campbell areas.

I have an enthusiasm for doing in-depth work that will help you to achieve long-term change. This type of work is especially effective if you have ongoing patterns that affect your relationships, such as difficulty with commitment, intimacy, or closeness, self-sabotaging, not living up to your potential, or the feeling that now matter what you achieve, you never feel “good enough.”

People don’t come to counseling to be told how to live their lives. I think deep down we all probably have some sense of what we need. But we may need help getting past all the other voices so we can hear our own voice and identify what those needs are. I do not give quick and easy advice. I ask questions to help you reflect in a fresh way on your inner experience and your feelings. So you can start to get ahold of why you do the things you do and why it is so hard to make change.

I believe we all start off life with a budding “real” self that along the way can get compromised. Often we end up with another “self” that we show to the world, because in some way or another we want to protect that “real” self, or tuck it away. But there is a great personal cost to us when we cannot use ourselves to help us know what we want or need and how to get it. My job is to help you take a look at where you may have gotten stuck, and to help you find a better process that works for you. I have a commitment to integrity and truthfulness in the therapeutic relationship.

Joanne Shurter MFT, 51 E. Campbell Ave., Suite 170, Campbell, CA 95008

408-440-7457