About Jonathan Zalesne
Couples and Family Therapy is a second career for me. I had a successful and fulfilling career in Management Consulting for almost 25 years. My last “real job” was working for Oracle running a Business Process Management consulting group. I always knew that I would have two careers and that my second career would bring me closer to real people. In 2009, I faced down my fears and made the leap. I earned my Master’s degree in clinical counseling from the University of Northern Colorado and officially embarked on my journey to become a couples and family therapist. It has proved to be the best decision I have ever made. I love going to “work.” (I needed the quotes because sometimes it really doesn’t feel like work!) I love working with couples and helping them move closer to each other. I love my new colleagues and working closely with them to become a better therapist every day.
I have two incredible kids – a 21-year-old son and 23-year-old daughter. I am very proud of how my ex-wife and I co-parented our children.
Though we divorced when they were very young, we have remained very close friends, and I count her husband as a friend as well. My kids love their step-siblings, and I love them too. When she was 16 my daughter told me that she loved her life and wouldn’t change a thing. Now that is pretty great coming from an 16-year-old girl!
For five weeks in the summer of 2013 my daughter and I walked the 500-mile Camino de Santiago – the entire width of Spain from France to the Ocean. The summer before that, my son and I backpacked 120 miles on the Colorado Trail from Denver to Breckenridge. It took us four summers in total, but in 2018 we finally finished the rest of the 500-mile trail. We both loved/hated it, but what a fantastic bonding experience! I love walking, hiking, and backpacking, and my not-so-secret dream is to hike the entire Pacific Crest Trail from Mexico to Canada.
I like that I did not start my couples counseling career at age 20. I am now completely energized by it, and I think my real life experience helps me relate to many of the family therapy clients I see. The best thing a client ever said to me was that I was the only therapist they had ever seen whom they felt they could be friends with in their real lives. I took that as a great compliment. I like that I don’t come off as too new-agey. I don’t burn incense in my office, and I can relate to real people because I am pretty down-to-earth myself. But I do take my work and family therapy seriously. When my ex-wife and I were going through our divorce, we saw some pretty bad couples therapists. I often wonder what our outcome would have been had we worked with a really good EFT therapist – someone who actually knew how to work with couples. I work hard to be good at what I do because I think it is really important. No matter where you are in your relationship, if you want to make it better, so do I.