Dr. Jennifer De Costa, LMFT
Guiding practical change with respectful care
About Jennifer
Dr. Jennifer De Costa is a licensed marriage and family therapist with 22 years of experience.
Background and approach
She practices from Hawaii and works with individuals facing stress, anxiety, grief, trauma, addiction, and life changes. Her approach is practical and respectful, aimed at helping people find clearer ways forward.
She favors a collaborative style that centers the person's strengths. Sessions focus on what is working and on small, doable steps toward change.
Conversations are interactive and supportive, with an emphasis on dignity and realistic goals. Dr.
De Costa uses client-centered approaches that let the client's own voice guide the work. She draws on narrative techniques to help people rewrite stories that feel stuck.
Motivational interviewing is used when clients want help finding motivation for change. Her background includes many years helping people recover from trauma and cope with compassion fatigue and caregiver stress.
She also supports people dealing with relationship and intimacy-related concerns, blended family issues, adoption and foster care matters, and aging or geriatric questions. Practical matters like work stress, career choices, and managing bipolar symptoms are also part of her scope.
She pays attention to isolation, forgiveness work, codependency, and life purpose when those topics arise in sessions. The goal is to make therapy relevant to everyday life.
Dr. De Costa uses a plan that is shaped with each person.
She helps clients set small goals, try new approaches, and measure progress. That collaborative roadmap keeps work focused and manageable.
How these approaches work online
Client-Centered Therapy places the client's experience at the center of sessions and focuses on listening, empathy, and building trust; it helps when someone needs to feel heard and to clarify personal goals. Motivational Interviewing is a collaborative way to resolve mixed feelings and find momentum for change; it is useful for addictions, readiness for change, and goal setting. Narrative Therapy looks at the stories people tell about themselves and helps separate the person from the problem so new possibilities can emerge.Deciding which approach fits best is part of the work together. The therapist will ask about the client's needs, goals, and preferences and then try methods that match those aims. That collaborative process lets adjustments happen over time so the approach stays useful and relevant.
Online formats like video calls, phone sessions, live chat, and text-based messaging offer flexibility for different schedules and needs. Video calls allow face-to-face connection for deeper conversations, phone sessions work well when bandwidth is limited, live chat suits brief check-ins or focused topics, and text messaging supports ongoing reflection between sessions. These options make it easier to fit therapy into a busy life while keeping the focus on progress and practical change.
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Specialties and expertise
Top specialties
Also works with
- Addictions
- Adoption and foster care
- Aging and geriatric issues
- Anger management
- Bipolar disorder
- Blended family issues
- Career difficulties
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Co-morbidity
- Codependency
- Compassion fatigue
- Coping with life changes
- Family conflicts
- Forgiveness
- Intimacy-related issues
- Isolation / loneliness
- Life purpose
- Self esteem
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 22 years
- Licensed
- Hawaii
- Languages
- English