About Ryan Jaarsma, PsyD

Ryan Jaarsma, PsyD, the Director of Behavioral Health Education at Southern Colorado Family Medicine, loves helping people get curious about their emotions. He feels that we experience emotions to protect and direct us to something that requires our attention once we understand our emotions, we can use them to find helpful ways to deal with situations. Dr. Jaarsma is passionate about learning how we can use psychology and emotional intelligence to understand ourselves and others more fully. He utilizes Motivational Interviewing and a combination of different schools of therapy to determine what fits best with each person he works with.

Originally from Northern Virginia, Dr. Jaarsma attended Calvin University in Grand Rapids, Michigan for his undergraduate degree and then earned his doctorate in clinical psychology from Wheaton College in Illinois. He has worked at Western Michigan University and Pine Rest Christian Mental Health in a variety of psychology roles, including therapist, Training Director, Supervisor, Manager and Faculty. Across these roles he discovered that providing therapy to patients and teaching psychology to Residents are his professional passions. Dr. Jaarsma is very excited to be doing both of these at the Southern Colorado Family Medicine Residency program.

Dr. Jaarsma recently moved to Colorado to take advantage of the tremendous outdoor activities, including hiking 14’ers, trail biking and four-wheel driving in the mountains.