Dr. JONATHAN RHODES, PsyD
Licensed Clinical Psychologist
Professional Training:
Doctor of Psychology (PsyD), Clinical Psychology, The Chicago School of Professional Psychology, 2013
Master of Arts (MA), Psychology, The Chicago School of Professional Psychology, 2010
Approach to Therapy:
You might be suffering. You might be stuck. Your heart might be crying out for a life that wants to be lived!
However, Dr. Rhodes believes you are not “broken” – and, neither is your brain. You are already a WHOLE Human-Being. He operates from a place that it’s his role to help you learn new behaviors, and allow you to build a life that is increasingly worth living.
That is why Dr. Rhodes has been a passionate student and practitioner of contextual-behavioral interventions that have been shown – through research – to alleviate human suffering, as well as increase our connection to the world and people around us. These interventions are rooted in cutting-edge science, spirituality, and the very best of what it means to be human. Over the past decade, he has been actively engaged in learning, practicing, and disseminating these interventions – including delivering didactic presentations and trainings at regional and national conferences.
Dr. Rhodes is a behavior-therapist who believes in utilizing empirically-supported interventions that balance acceptance and change, including:
- Acceptance & Commitment Therapy (ACT) – ACT focuses on helping us accept the things we cannot change and being more committed to changing the things we can. It teaches us to be flexible and build lives that are increasingly meaningful – and purposefully chosen. It has worked for people struggling with a wide range of issues (e.g. depression, anxiety disorders, insomnia, drug abuse, pain-management, insomnia, etc.).
- Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) – Originally developed for people with severe emotional and behavioral dysregulation (e.g. suicide, self-injury, people diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder), this cognitive-behavioral intervention has now been shown to work for people struggling with substance dependence, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and eating disorders. Contingency management, coaching, and skills training aims to teach clients how to regulate emotions effectively, handle distressing experiences, and navigate relationships more effectively.
- Exposure Therapy – Exposure-based interventions (e.g. prolonged-exposure, exposure & response-prevention, etc.) have been shown to help people with stress, anxiety, and trauma face their fears. By replacing avoidance strategies as a way to cope, exposure therapy helps people reprocess fearful or disgusting experiences in a way that aims to give them long-term relief.
- Behavioral Activation – When we make our lives about avoiding things that are scary, sad, or painful, we often get stuck. Behavioral activation is an intervention that focuses on increasing the activities that provide you sense of pleasure, mastery, and meaning. According to research (see C.W. Lejuez and colleagues), this approach has been shown to be as effective as medication to treat the symptoms of depression.
Professional Experience
Dr. Rhodes trained in the Chicagoland area, completing his internship and residency on a chemical-dependency program. During that time, he worked to apply many of the aforementioned interventions to people suffering with substance-abuse; as well as those struggling with anxiety, depression, eating-disorders, and personality-disorders.
Upon completing his training, he returned to Missouri to work at Fulton State Hospital (FSH) as a psychologist on a full, Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) program. While there, he learned to apply DBT to help people with severe cases of borderline personality disorder (BPD), as well as developmental disabilities. Additionally, Dr. Rhodes served in various supervisory roles – including Program Director – for a separate treatment milieu, that worked to treat patients with severe forms of psychosis, as well as antisocial personality disorders. During his time there, he contributed to the process of program-development, implementing new models of treating these patients with measurable, positive outcomes.
Dr. Rhodes excitedly joined Life-Song in 2018 to engage with individual clients in psychological assessment, as well as direct therapy.
