Joni Rorije

Joni specializes in young adults and teens, with a passion for helping clients navigate the transition to adulthood, including college and career counseling, learning how to “adult,” and finding direction and meaning in life. She also specializes in managing ADHD, anxiety, depression and working with clients with nerdy interests, such as video games and Dungeons and Dragons. Joni believes in the uniqueness of every client, affirming those who are LGBTQIA+, neurodivergent, marginalized, or simply looking for someone to accept and welcome them for who they are.

Her counseling philosophy is based in Existential-Humanistic Therapy, but she also integrates methods from Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy and Solution-Focused Therapy, as well as other techniques and methods based on her client’s unique needs. Like Irvin Yalom, an American existential psychiatrist, Joni aims to “create a new therapy for each patient.”

Joni grew up in Wichita Falls, TX and moved to Dallas to attend Southern Methodist University to receive a bachelor’s degree in biology. Originally, she turned her love for the environment into a career in education, gaining diverse experiences including outdoor education and STEM summer camps, and teaching middle and high school science. She soon discovered that her favorite part of education was the opportunity to develop individual connections with young people, especially helping them navigate their goals after high school. She then shifted into a college and career counseling role.

Opportunities as a teacher, as well as her experiences with career and mental health counselors along the way, led Joni to pursue her professional counseling degree at Amberton University to help more people discover their purpose, find meaning, and reach their personal goals. Like many young adults she, too, struggled with finding her own path, changing her mind countless times. After years of wrestling with self-doubt and perfectionism, she confronted her own depression, anxiety and stress in therapy and finally uncovered her ADHD diagnosis as an adult.

Joni’s ethnic background is Korean and Dutch; she is the child of first-generation immigrants and grew up with mixed cultural influences. When she is not working, she enjoys playing video games and tabletop games, especially fantasy RPGs and Indie games. She also enjoys spending time in nature, birdwatching, listening to alternative and electronic music, lifelong learning, and hanging out with her partner, Andrew, and their cat, Tony.