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Jessica Fountas, Ph.D., is a 2025 graduate of the Ph.D. Program in Couple and Family Therapy at Antioch University, New England

Dissertation Committee:

  • Lucille H. Byno, LMFT, PhD, Chairperson
  • Denzel L. Jones, LMFT, PhD, Committee Member
  • Monica Sesma-Vazquez, RSW, RMFT-SM, PhD, External Expert

Keywords

clinical intuition, teaching clinical intuition, marriage and family therapy training, marriage and family therapy graduate programs, systemic supervision, critical consciousness, self of the therapist, hermeneutic phenomenology, systemic supervisors, program directors

Document Type

Dissertation

Publication Date

2025

Abstract

This research explored how marriage and family therapy graduate programs awaken, develop, and teach clinical intuition. Using criterion-based sampling and snowball sampling, six licensed marriage and family therapists participated in a two-step hermeneutic phenomenological study consisting of individual semistructured interviews and a follow-up focus group. Requirements for participation were licensed marriage and family therapists who were in clinical practice, had experienced the phenomenon of clinical intuition and awakening of clinical intuition, and used clinical intuition in therapy with clients and in systemic supervision with supervisees. The research findings highlighted 14 themes: Reflection of the Experience of Clinical Intuition; Bodily Knowing, Sensing, and Self-Trust; Maturity, Wisdom, and Critical Consciousness; Integration of Theory; Relational Attunement and Connection; the Process of Supervision; Supervisors Use of Self/Parallel Process/Isomorphism; Paradigm Shift; Decolonizing Therapy, Awakening Critical Consciousness, and Attuning to Sociopolitical Factors in Relationships; Challenges; Awareness of Intuition Being Influenced by the Dominate Discourse; the Role Gender Plays; Teaching Intuition Falls Under Teaching Self of the Therapist; Clinical Intuition Is Relational, each of which support and foster the awakening, development, and teaching of clinical intuition in marriage and family therapy graduate programs. Future recommendations consist of creating a critically conscious curriculum to train supervisors how to awaken, develop, and teach clinical intuition to supervisees, and creating a conceptual framework for marriage and family therapy programs to incorporate awakening, developing, and teaching clinical intuition in their graduate programs. This dissertation is available in open access at AURA (https://aura.antioch.edu/) and OhioLINK ETD Center (https://etd.ohiolink.edu).

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ORCID No.: 0009-0001-5482-1352

Bio:

Jessica Fountas (PhD) is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist practicing in New York and Connecticut. She is a Clinical Fellow of the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy (AAMFT) and an AAMFT Approved Supervisor. Dr. Fountas also serves as a faculty member in the School of Social and Behavioral Sciences at Mercy University, where she teaches courses in Marriage and Family Therapy.

Grounded in a critical social justice feminist perspective and informed by a social constructionist stance, Dr. Fountas’ clinical orientation is rooted in collaborative, dialogic practices. She centers the therapeutic relationship as the primary agent of change, believing that through collaborative meaning-making, clients can reconnect with their inner wisdom, rebuild self-trust, and access their innate intuition.

Dr. Fountas’ scholarship explores clinical intuition, relational power dynamics, and the ways in which the intersections of patriarchy, capitalism, and new sexism impact embodied relational presence in the field of couple and family therapy.

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