Psychology that makes room for complexity and supports change

Jamelle (Jamie) Greene, Ph.D.

Licensed Psychologist

I have always been drawn to psychology because it is both a science and an art. It gives us ways to understand patterns and create meaningful change while leaving room for complexity and for the parts of being human that do not fit neatly into categories.

I'm a licensed clinical psychologist with close to 20 years of experience in psychotherapy, psychological assessment, consultation, supervision, and education. I graduated from Harvard College and earned my Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from Boston University. My career has included private practice, community mental health, schools, assessment, and clinical training.

How I Think About Therapy

Dialectical Behavior Therapy, or DBT, has been the foundation of my clinical work for more than a decade. Its principles also deeply influence how I think about life.

I completed comprehensive training through Behavioral Tech, the organization founded to disseminate the work of DBT developer Marsha Linehan. I was part of one of only two cohorts of independent practitioners to complete a two-year intensive training program. I later trained other clinicians in DBT and led consultation teams for practicing therapists.

What has stayed with me most is not simply a set of techniques, but the philosophy underneath them: mindfulness, radical acceptance, dialectical thinking, and the balancing of acceptance and change in the service of building a life worth living.

DBT remains my foundation even when I draw from other evidence-based and insight-oriented approaches. I do not expect any one model to explain an entire person.

I do not currently offer comprehensive DBT. My practice is designed for adults and older adolescents who can be supported through weekly individual psychotherapy rather than those who need the more intensive, crisis-focused structure of comprehensive DBT. I continue to have tremendous respect and affection for people whose struggles with intense emotions can become acute. Knowing DBT well also means recognizing when someone needs a more intensive structure of care than I provide.

Experience, Identity, and Difference

I grew up on St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands, and that remains an important part of who I am.

I am also a Black woman who has lived significant parts of my life in both the West Indies and the continental United States. My understanding of identity, difference, power, and belonging is not only academic or clinical. It is lived and, in important ways, bodily. I know something personally about moving through environments where who you are can take on different meanings depending on the context.

That perspective has shaped my work. Throughout my career, I have been especially committed to people who have not always been well understood or well served by traditional systems of care, including people of color and LGBTQIA+ adolescents and adults. I try to remain attentive to issues of difference and power without assuming that sharing or understanding an aspect of someone's identity means that I understand their experience. Curiosity and humility remain essential.

Sensitivity is also something I understand personally. I feel things deeply, notice nuance, and can be affected by the emotional world around me. Sensitivity can be a source of empathy, intuition, creativity, and connection. It can also be exhausting, particularly when it is misunderstood or devalued.

I have become less interested in making sensitivity smaller and more interested in helping people understand it, trust themselves, and live more freely with who they are.

People I Especially Enjoy Working With

I am drawn to people who experience strong emotions, whatever those emotions look like from the outside. Some turn distress inward through worry, perfectionism, or self-criticism. Others may seem tough, irritable, angry, or difficult to reach while experiencing just as much underneath. I am interested in what is happening beneath the reaction rather than reducing someone to the way distress happens to show up.

I also love working with parents. Parenting can evoke some of our strongest reactions, especially when a child is struggling or taking a path we did not expect. Fear and protectiveness can make it more difficult to respond to the child who is actually in front of us. I help parents understand and manage their own reactions so they can be more present and effective with their children. The goal is not perfect regulation. It is enough awareness and steadiness to choose how you want to respond.

I have also spent a large part of my life in educational communities. I have lived and worked in boarding schools, served as a school counselor and administrator, and worked in college counseling. I understand both the excitement and pressure of high-performing environments, and how easily achievement can become intertwined with identity, self-worth, and fear about the future. That experience informs my work with individuals and families navigating these worlds.

My style as a person and therapist is warm, collaborative, curious, and gently challenging. I laugh easily, and I am present and real in the room. I love questions and complexity, and I can get pretty animated when something suddenly clicks or when we discover a new way of understanding a problem. I am occasionally irreverent, too. Serious work does not always have to feel solemn.

I have never believed that being a good psychologist requires hiding the fact that I can be moved by what someone shares with me. If something affects me, you may be able to see that. My response, however, is never something you need to manage.

I will listen carefully and take your experience seriously. I will also help you notice patterns, try new strategies, and ask whether what we are doing is actually helping. I believe therapy works best when understanding leads somewhere.

Cancer, Limits, and What Matters

In 2021, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. That experience has taught me firsthand that cancer is much more than a medical event. It can reshape your relationship with your body and mind, your sense of safety, your family, your work, and your assumptions about the future. Those effects may continue long after the most visible parts of treatment are over.

My experience is only my experience, and I would never assume it tells me what cancer is like for someone else. It has, however, deepened my interest in working with adults navigating cancer diagnosis, treatment, survivorship, and the emotional aftermath.

Cancer has also changed how I think about limits. It has made the limits of control much more concrete and reinforced something DBT has taught me for years: acceptance is not the same as resignation. Some things can be changed. Some cannot. Living meaningfully requires learning to tell the difference.

I have become more attentive to the difference between simply enduring more and building a life that is sustainable and worth living. That understanding affects how I live, how I practice, and the work I choose to do.

A Little More About Me

Outside of work, I'm married to the person I met in college and am the mother of a young adult daughter whom my husband and I adopted when she was one. I love pets, reading, warm and sunny places, science fiction, musicals, and some reality television of decidedly questionable quality. (Ok, really questionable!) Our dog, Kalli, is a much-loved member of the family.

I don't think any of us ever becomes a finished product. I see therapy as one place where we can become more curious about who we are, understand what has shaped us, change what is getting in our way, accept what cannot or need not be changed, and become more fully ourselves.