LJ Taugher, MA

Program Manager - Virtual Reality Therapy

LJ has a passion for helping people find their voice, be heard, and explore how they best engage in the world. LJ strongly believes in understanding how each person approaches life based on their own unique lived experiences. Doing so helps to build a plan with a person that is tailored to who a person is and where they want to head.

LJ approaches working with people from the perspective that there are key aspects that make therapy therapy but how we do those is up to the person LJ is working with. LJ believes each person’s story is unique and so how we work together to overcome challenges needs to be shaped for the person to be of the most use.

Professional interests of LJ’s are the integration of technology into psychotherapy, Geek Therapy (bringing video games, D & D, sci-fi, anime, etc into therapy), and the overlap between psychology and linguistics. LJ co-teaches a course on emerging trends in psychotherapy in the master’s in counseling program at Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota -Twin Cities. LJ is the lead researcher on a study titled “Linguistic rules of discourse in multicultural counseling: When meaning falls apart” investigating the role of culturally appropriate linguistic characteristics in miscommunications during psychotherapy. Also, LJ has returned to school to pursue a doctoral degree in counseling psychology (PsyD).

In his free time, LJ loves playing video games with a preference of RPGs, fantasy-based FPS, platformers, and puzzles. In the past few years LJ has taken up weightlifting and CrossFit. LJ also enjoys traveling with his spouse to go hiking and having friends over for dinners. When not reading for school LJ likes cozy mystery novels.