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SPECIALIZING IN COGNITIVE BEHAVIOR THERAPY & AUTHOR OF BEYOND HAPPINESS, FEATURING THE SUSTAINABLE LIFE SATISFACTION® BRAND.

Dr. Jennifer Guttman

Licensed Clinical Psychologist Specializing in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Positive Psychology

Beyond Happiness by Dr. Jennifer Guttman. Available in Hardcover and Paperback

Learn more about Dr. Guttman's latest book, Beyond Happiness

MISSION STATEMENT: 

Specializing in cognitive-behavior therapy and the Sustainable Life Satisfaction® brand (SLS®)  

My mission is to use my experience, expertise, voice, and pen to help motivate and empower people to realize there is “a path to achieve sustainable life satisfaction and inherent loveability.” I have been researching and specializing in cognitive-behavior therapy and positive psychology for 30 years.  My goal is to assist in reframing thinking errors, improve mood modulation, increase mindfulness and offer relaxation strategies.

In addition, I formulated the Sustainable Life Satisfaction® brand based on my therapeutic success with my clients.  SLS® utilizes six techniques; avoiding assumptions, reducing people-pleasing behaviors, facing fears, making decisions, closing out tasks, and active self-reinforcement. When coalesced these techniques assist individuals in believing in their personal effectiveness in the world, as well as giving them a sense of personal control of outcomes to the best of their ability. Therapy isn’t for everybody. However, if you’re motivated, you are the only tool necessary because you are the change agent.

“Jennifer uses cognitive-behavior therapy with a combination of empathy, sensitivity, creativity and natural ability to provide what is needed for excellent clinical care. A talented professional, she is comfortable using integrated and effective therapeutic strategies for all ages of clients.”
– Dr. Eva Feindler

Dr. Eva Feindler is considered an expert in the fields of cognitive-behavior therapy with children and adolescents, adolescent anger control and family violence, and is the Director of the Clinical Psychology Doctoral Program at Long Island University/LIU Post Campus

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The brain is wider than the sky.

-Emily Dickinson

Meet the Doctor

Not everybody experiences a watershed or anointed moment in their life when they discover and decide what they want to be, but for Dr. Jennifer Guttman it happened when she was a shy, timid, alienated 13-year-old wallflower during sleep-away camp. While conversing with an inquisitive camp nurse, she was asked, “What do you like doing?” Jennifer replied, “I like listening to people.” The nurse informed her there was a profession for doing just that, and from that day on, the attentive and avid listener made psychology her mission and passion.

Today, that awkward and unassuming teenager has morphed into Dr. Jennifer Guttman, a leading Cognitive Behavioral therapist, clinical psychologist, and motivator, with over 30 years of experience in the field of mental health. She has built thriving practices in New York City and Westport, Connecticut. Since the COVID pandemic 100% of her services to roughly 120 clients are being exclusively offered virtually. Currently, roughly 40% of her clientele suffer from some serious form of mental illness: bipolar disorder, schizoaffective disorder, and major depressive disorder. The other 60% come to see her for transient or developmental life issues and most recently she has been treating clients suffering from trauma using EMDR. (She works with children as young as seven years old through individuals in their eighties.) Primarily her clients are 17-55 years old. Her clientele is also a homogeneous cultural and religious mix of people from all walks of life and sexual identities.

About eight years ago, while her business was experiencing thriving success, and she had reached an equitable co-parenting arrangement, she was beset by two unforeseen life-altering events. Following a trip abroad she was suddenly diagnosed with multiple pulmonary embolisms that almost killed her. During her recovery, her father died six months later. Devastated by both occurrences, the truth to the proverbial cliché, “life is short” resonated with her. In that moment of awakening, she became defiantly resilient.

Subsequently, she began contemplating a path to realize a dormant dream to motivate and help people become more self-reliant. She fused traditional Cognitive Behavior therapy techniques with some of her own core techniques which were developed and refined over years of personal interaction with her clients. In the fall of 2017, she started specializing in cognitive-behavior therapy featuring the Sustainable Life Satisfaction® brand, (also known as SLS®) which she created.

While Dr. Guttman has been prolific and is continually advancing her knowledge and areas of expertise to help motivate and support her clientele, her own path to success hasn’t been what one would refer to as smooth sailing. In fact, it has been quite the opposite, mired by a myriad of roadblocks, rejection and sometimes an ominous sense of adversity. She grew up in Scarsdale, NY, the older of two siblings, and her parents, (her father was an attorney and general counsel of Time Inc., and her mother has a doctorate in medieval literature) divorced when she was five years old. She lived with her mother in Scarsdale and visited her father in Manhattan on weekends.

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Upon graduation she applied and was accepted at Drew University. Drew is well known for its psychology department and it was the only school to which she applied. Her goal was to earn her Bachelors ‘degree and move straight on to a doctoral program in Clinical Psychology. After graduating from Drew University, she applied to numerous Clinical Psychology doctoral degree programs, but was rejected by all of them. Refusing to fuel her disappointment, she secured a job working for Planned Parenthood and took doctoral level classes at St. John’s University.

During the spring term of that year, she reapplied to Clinical Psychology Doctoral Programs and was accepted to the Clinical Psychology Doctoral Program at Long Island University. It was the only acceptance letter she received. While there, she met the noted professor Dr. Eva Feindler, whom she not only credits as her mentor, but also for steering her in the direction of Cognitive Behavior Therapy.

Dr. Feindler was also the first person to really push her beyond her limits, which proved to be valuable to her future personal and professional growth. Dr. Feindler is a renowned expert in Cognitive Behavior Therapy and specializes in Anger Management in Adolescents. Jennifer also admired Dr. Aaron T. Beck’s work on Cognitive-Behavior Therapy, Albert Bandura’s work on self-efficacy and loved Heinz Kohut, who is considered a theoretician of self-psychology (which involves a person’s self-concept or beliefs about themselves).

Fresh out of graduate school, Jennifer accepted an offer to work for the Mental Health Association of Westchester County and was assigned to work off-site as a clinician at WestHELP-Greenburgh, a family homeless shelter. The shelter was personally endorsed and supported by Andrew Cuomo and was housed on the campus of Westchester Community College. WestHELP was a haven for minority and disenfranchised mothers with children under the age of five. It was a challenging and exciting task, but Jennifer was undeterred. She helped to empower the women and broke the traditional protocol that mandated all appointments needed to be requested in advance. Instead, she offered every woman carte blanche access to meet and talk to her about anything and everything.

While she was working at WestHELP she tried to spread her wings and launch her own start-up practice as a Clinical Psychologist in Tarrytown, NY. She relied mostly on referrals from insurance companies for clients. She was attempting to refine her treatment approach with a different client demographic then the demographic she was seeing at the shelter. Although she was fulfilling her goals, within the year it became clear her business model was not sustainable, so it was shuddered.  In 1995, she married and four years later had her first child, a son. In 2001, she gave birth to her second child, a daughter. That year, she resigned from the Mental Health Association of Westchester County to parent full-time.

However, during her eight-year tenure she had secured a staff, serviced close to 1000 women, and was promoted to several positions including Assistant Executive Director of the Mental Health Association. In that role, she was responsible for all clinical care throughout the agency and supervising over 200 mental health staff including social workers, psychologists, and psychiatrists.  After taking a professional hiatus for a year, she opened a private practice in Westport, CT (2002). Within the first six months she was introduced to numerous psychiatrists, psychologists, and social workers within the Fairfield community that she grew to admire and respect.

After 15 years in Fairfield County, Jennifer expanded her practice to include a location in Midtown Manhattan. Before the pandemic, she fully embraced and immersed herself into city life in Manhattan, and networking with other professionals.

Her range of expertise covers writing on topics such as: overall mental health, self-empowerment, self-confidence, the workplace, relationships, divorce, death, anxiety, addiction, teen suicide, and navigating potentially tricky holidays like Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Valentine’s Day.

Dr. Guttman balances an energizing work-life with parenting two young adults. In the little spare time her daily regimen allows, she has been an avid theatergoer and world traveler.

Dr. Jennifer Guttman, Sustainable Life Satisfaction

“I  embrace and cherish human flaw as an opportunity for growth, redemption, and education. It’s  a path forward, a path toward hope. That’s what allows me to motivate people.  And no one is exempt from that possibility.”

-Dr. Jennifer Guttman


“Many therapists assume the role of teacher, guru, ‘objective listener’. Dr Guttman is similar in this respect, yet simultaneously different.  She shares herself. She is open, giving, real.  She guides with words and deeds.  Most importantly, she has helped me emerge into the person I was meant to be.”


“I resisted many of Jennifer’s attempts to help me since middle school–but she never gave up on me. I remember the very conversation when I finally accepted her help. With her guidance, I rediscovered myself: the jubilant childhood me I thought we all give up to become adults. Today, I am the happiest, most content version of myself and I owe it all to Jennifer.”


“Jennifer has been instrumental in helping both myself and my family handle my anxiety.  She is incredibly responsive and always accommodates my needs.  I cannot imagine where I would be right now without her help, and could not recommend her more highly!”

TREATMENT STYLES

Cognitive Behavior Therapy

SLS® Brand Techniques

Diagnoses

Guided Meditation

Treatment // Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT)

CBT Treatment is available for Children, Adolescents,  Adults and Couples.

Cognitive Behavior Therapy is a goal oriented, strategy based practical approach to problem solving and mood regulation.


Cognitive Behavior Therapy focuses on:

  • Challenging maladaptive assumptions and thinking errors
  • Cognitive Re-framing
  • Thought stopping strategies
  • Mood modulation
  • Imagery
  • Imaginal and In Vivo Desensitization
  • Assertiveness Training
  • Anger Control
  • Social Skills Training
  • Coping Skills Training
  • Communication Skills Training
  • EMDR: Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing
    • Reprocessing traumatic memories trapped in the right side of the brain using bilateral stimulation (usually rapid eye movements) to dampen the emotional charge to the memories.
Dr Guttman offers telehealth counseling

Treatment // Sustainable Life Satisfaction®

Dr. Guttman fuses traditional cognitive behavioral therapy with her own core methods, which she developed during her thirty-plus years of practice working with clients from diverse backgrounds. She encourages people to stop chasing something that is fleeting and focus on an attainable goal: sustainable satisfaction. She demonstrates how moving beyond happiness to contentment is achievable.

These six core techniques assist individuals in believing in their personal effectiveness in the world, as well as giving them a sense of personal control of outcomes to the best of their ability.

Sustainable Life Satisfaction®Sustainable Life Satisfaction® techniques:

 

1. AVOIDING ASSUMPTIONS: Avoid making assumptions about what other people think or feel about you. Your actions should be based on fact and not assumptions. Making decisions about how to proceed in a given situation based on guessing instead of facts is a dangerous exercise.

2. REDUCE PEOPLE PLEASING BEHAVIOR: Avoid situations of co-dependency and enmeshment. Learn to live an authentic life without living in “service” of others. Watch people pleasing behaviors which secure feelings of indispensability while averting fears of abandonment.

3. FACING FEARS: Do not be afraid to be afraid. Use your fear as positive motivation to propel and compel you to move forward.

4. DECISION-MAKING: Feeling confident in decision-making, without fearing mistakes or ramifications improves self-confidence and in turn improves chances for “closing.”

5. CLOSING: Learning the importance of closing tasks-not just starting. It’s imperative not just to start, but to also finish and close.

6. ACTIVE SELF-REINFORCEMENT: Providing tangible self-reinforcement for “closing” or a job well done. Make a cognitive shift from aspiring and needing reinforcement and praise from others to be willing to accept self-praise.

SLS®

Learn More and watch a video
“Society instills in us that being happy is binary. But happiness isn’t a mindset—it’s a feeling, and like any other emotion, it comes and goes.” Dr. Jennifer Guttman received a doctorate in clinical psychology from Long Island University. In her debut book, BEYOND HAPPINESS, THE 6 SECRETS OF LIFETIME SATISFACTION she lays out a roadmap on how to move beyond happiness to achieve authentic life satisfaction by becoming more confident, self-empowered, self-reliant, and resilient. Dr. Guttman uses six strategies to empower people to gain control over their lives by focusing on an enduring mindset, not a transient feeling.

Over the past five years Dr. Guttman has launched a motivational brand platform Sustainable Life Satisfaction® with four SLS® YouTube web series which have cumulatively netted over two million views and published a workbook with the same title. She is a regular contributor to Psychology Today, Thrive Global, MindBodyGreen, and written in articles for the Washington Post, NBC.com, Readers Digest, Redbook, Health, TeenVogue, among others. Dr. Guttman has been a guest on over two dozen podcasts including “Unshakeable Self-Confidence,” “Harvesting Happiness,” “Resilience Unraveled” and “The Hidden Why.”

 

Treatment // Diagnoses

Dr. Guttman’s therapeutic approach enables her to positively impact individuals struggling with the following issues:

  • Anxiety
  • Depression
  • Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder
  • Separation Anxiety Disorder
  • Obsessive Compulsive Disorder
  • Phobias
  • Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
  • Acute Stress Disorder
  • Schizophrenia
  • Schizoaffective Disorder
  • Bipolar Disorder
  • Asperger’s Syndrome
  • Dissociative Identity Disorder

Treatment // Guided Meditation

BOOKS, VIDEOS, COURSE & WORKSHOP

Available in hardcover and paperback:

Beyond Happiness: The 6 Secrets of Lifetime Satisfaction

Change the Goal, Not the Feeling

Beyond Happiness by Dr. Jennifer Guttman. Available in Hardcover and Paperback

A psychologist’s six-step roadmap to a life beyond happiness—one of sustainable lifetime satisfaction.

How often do you find yourself asking “Am I happy?” and do you struggle to answer the question? Don’t worry—you’re not alone. Society instills in us that being happy is binary. But happiness isn’t a mindset—it’s a feeling, and like any other emotion, it comes and goes. So stop chasing something that by definition is fleeting, and start focusing on an attainable goal: sustainable satisfaction. Beyond Happiness is a roadmap that utilizes various techniques and skills that are easy enough to use in everyday life but challenging enough to make a meaningful impact. When you move beyond happiness to achieve authentic life satisfaction, you become more confident, self-empowered, self-reliant, and resilient.

Beyond Happiness: The 6 Secrets of Lifetime Satisfaction

AUDIBLE ORIGINAL

A friendly, practiced approach to not only surviving life’s pitfalls but to thriving with a sustainable level of contentment.

Beyond Happiness, The 6 Secrets of Life Satisfaction

Are you happy? Nearly half of adults worldwide—40 percent—would say “no”. Even when we possess it, happiness can be a fleeting emotion. It’s natural that we should desire something longer lasting.

In Beyond Happiness: The 6 Secrets of Lifetime Satisfaction, psychologist Dr. Jennifer Guttman guides listeners in living a deeply fulfilling life by aiming for a kind of contentment that is more sustainable than happiness.

Free Sustainable Life Satisfaction Workshop

How to Stop Failing at Being Happy and Practice Deeper, Long-Lasting, Everyday Contentment

A Free Online Workshop With Clinical Psychologist & Author of Beyond Happiness, Dr. Jennifer Guttman

SATISFACTION REVOLUTION Virtual Course

Based on the Book “Beyond Happiness”

Satisfaction Revolution Course: Learn the 6 keys to Sustainable Life Satisfaction® so you can build self-confidence and live a happier life
Dr. Guttman’s Satisfaction Revolution course is based on her book, “Beyond Happiness.” Participants will learn 6 secrets of life satisfaction that will empower them to gain control over their own happiness: avoiding assumptions, reducing people-pleasing behaviors, facing fears, making decisions, closing, and active self-reinforcement.

This course is for anyone who wants to become more resilient and experience an improvement in overall well-being.

Sustainable Life Satisfaction® Digital Series

Original Sustainable Life Satisfaction℠ Series

Sustainable Life Satisfaction® (SLS)

A six-episode series focusing on all of the Sustainable Life Satisfaction techniques: avoiding assumptions, reducing people-pleasing behaviors, facing fears, making decisions, closing out tasks, and active self-reinforcement.

H.E.A.R Series

The H.E.A.R Series

This series focuses on the importance of four core skills: (H) Hope, (E) Empowerment, (A) Adaptation, and (R) Resilience.

At-Work and At-Home

An eight-episode SLS series which focuses on four of her techniques: Facing Fears, Decision Making, Avoiding Assumptions, and Reducing People Pleasing Behaviors. In this series, Dr. Guttman discusses how to use these strategies At-Work and At-Home.

The Key is Happiness is Satisfaction Series

In this series “The Key to Happiness is Satisfaction” Dr. Guttman interviews thought leaders on their personal experiences of satisfaction vs happiness. In the series, conducted via IGLive and repurposed on YouTube, you will hear illuminating stories from the co-founders of Women Work F**ing Hard, Lindsay Shookus and Kristin Merrick; Psychologist, Amber Dalsin; Medical Wellness Expert, Dr. Shad Marvasti; and Podcast host, Gabriel Klingman on what satisfaction has meant to them over the course of their lives.

A PATH TO SUSTAINABLE LIFE SATISFACTION Workbook

In her workbook, “A Path To Sustainable Life Satisfaction,” (released in June 2018 independently and available on Amazon.com/Kindle) Dr. Jennifer Guttman explains her six core techniques; avoiding assumptions, reducing people-pleasing behaviors, facing fears, making decisions, closing out tasks, and active self-reinforcement. When coalesced together, they serve as a blueprint to motivate and make you feel more empowered and self-reliant. The workbook also features several fun and complementary exercises that are designed to challenge and help you think about happiness in a more realistic way. Instead of chasing happiness, she encourages people to focus on achieving sustainable life satisfaction.

THE LATEST FROM DR. GUTTMAN’S BLOG

Psychology Today

PRESS & PODCASTS

Since the summer of 2016, Dr. Guttman has been featured as a Contributor and/or has written articles in over twenty nationally recognized publications and blogs including; The Washington Post, Redbook, Reader’s Digest, The Hill, Family Education, and Thrillist, among others. She has talked about a wide range of subject matter, from health/wellness, relationships and dealing with adolescent issues to coping with divorce and has reached a cumulative audience of over 130 million impressions.

PRESS & PODCASTS

Since the summer of 2016, Dr. Guttman has been featured as a Contributor and/or has written articles in over twenty nationally recognized publications and blogs including; The Washington Post, Redbook, Reader’s Digest, The Hill, Family Education, and Thrillist, among others. She has talked about a wide range of subject matter, from health/wellness, relationships and dealing with adolescent issues to coping with divorce and has reached a cumulative audience of over 130 million impressions.

Appearance on Scripps News Morning Rush, May 17, 2024

PODCAST APPEARANCES

Featuring Beyond Happiness

Beyond Happiness by Dr. Jennifer Guttman

The Hidden Why

11/19/18

Food for Fitness

11/13/18

Anxiety Slayer

6/21/18

Contact

Dr. Jennifer Guttman

jennifer@guttmanpsychology.com

Dr. Guttman is currently conducting all therapy sessions via Telehealth.

Specializing in cognitive-behavior therapy and the Sustainable Life Satisfaction® brand (SLS®).

Inquiries

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Beyond Happiness by Dr. Jennifer Guttman

All Dr. Guttman’s photos by Mike Ruiz.