Jen Johnson, LCMHC
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About Jen Johnson
Jen is a mindfulness and writing teacher and coach, licensed counselor, and speaker with more than 40 years of experience in practicing and teaching mindfulness.
Jen provides coaching and counseling services for adults who are experiencing stress, grief, creative blocks, chronic illness or navigating life transitions. Her creative work explores psychological space, narrative, place, memory, loss, longing, and meaning at the intersection of inner life and the natural world.
For more than four decades Jen has worked as a mindfulness teacher, counselor, writer, and fine art photographer, helping people find steadiness, creativity, and meaning in the midst of stress, loss, uncertainty, and change. She is a licensed mental health counselor in North Carolina and a board certified coach specializing in health and wellness, certified rehabilitation counselor, and North Carolina certified environmental educator
Jen is the author of a forthcoming book on mindfulness, writing, and nature connection for self-discovery, transformation, and creative renewal that will be published in fall 2027. Her writing has appeared in anthologies and publications on psychology, mind body healing, and creativity, and her poetry has been published in an anthology and The Healing Muse.
Jen’s photography is held in medical, corporate, and private collections and has been exhibited internationally. Her Ghost Trees photography series — a 15-year exploration of dying bald cypress trees in coastal North Carolina, documented through exhibition, awards, and grant funding — investigates what it means to bear witness to loss and beauty simultaneously. Her Invisible Wounds of War Project mindfulness, writing, and photography project was supported by two grants from North Carolina Humanities. Jen’s Writing as Refugeâ„¢ practice offers writers, creatives, and seekers a mindful path to finding and transforming their own stories.
Jen has taught mindfulness at UNC’s Program onn Integrative Medicine and has taught writing at the university level. She serves as North Carolina Regional Coordinator for the Climate Psychology Alliance of North America.
Jen lives in coastal North Carolina, where she walks the same creeks and marshes she photographs, teaches, and writes about. She has spent her career working at the edges of where psychology, creativity, nature, and human suffering meet — from neurotoxicology research at the EPA, to brain injury rehabilitation at Shepherd Center, to mindfulness-based writing and photography work with veterans through the Invisible Wounds of War project, to her efforts related to nondiscrimination through the Community Relations Advisory Committee in Wilmington, to her current work with writers, creatives, and organizations navigating stress.
Jen honors the teachers who have shaped her work:Â Stephen Levine, Robert A. Johnson, Marion Woodman, Rita Charon, Carol Maso, Janisse Ray, Minor White, Lobsong Tenzin Negi, Jon Kabat-Zinn, Rick Hanson, Ronald Siegel, Deb Dana, James Pennebaker, and Piety Eloise.
EDUCATION AND CERTIFICATION
B. A. Psychology, Meredith College
M.S. Counseling, Georgia State University
M.S. Rehabilitation Counseling (Illness & Injury), Georgia State University
M.F.A. Interdisciplinary Arts (Creative Writing & Photography)
Licensed Clinical Mental Health Counselor in NC (LCMHC) #6478
Licensed Professional Counselor in GA (LPC) #2891
Board Certified Coach (BCC) #3925Â
Certified Rehabilitation Counselor (CRC) #14905
Board Certified Counselor (NBCC) #26687
Board Certified-TeleMental Health Provider (BC-TMH) #893
Experienced Registered Yoga Teacher (E-RYT)
Certified Master Birder. Atlanta Audubon
Certified NC Environmental EducatorÂ
View full credentials, publications, & exhibition history →
Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside dreams; who looks inside awakens.
— Carl Jung