John Petersen, Psy.D. is a licensed clinical psychologist, the founding Chairperson of Sophia Group, and a trainer for the Institute for the Study of Therapeutic Change. As a general practitioner, he provides counseling to adults, teenagers, and families in his private practice.

His professional interests include client-directed/outcome-informed psychotherapy with adults and teens, Adlerian family therapy, and parent education.

John's private practice is part of a growing international network called Heroic Agencies that is committed to tracking psychotherapy outcomes in empirically validated ways, in contrast to many agencies that use self-devised non-validated questionnaires for marketing purposes. This practice of tracking outcomes, session by session, with each client holds the therapist accountable for effective work and informs both therapist and client when the counseling approach is falling short.

His work with children and families is focused on helping parents help their children, with the understanding that parents have a much larger and enduring effect on the child than a therapist can in one hour per week. Children are seen with the parents in the room so all stakeholders can define the problems and be a part of the solutions.