Jennifer Lock Oman clinical social worker psychotherapist columnist

Jennifer Lock Oman, LISW, BCD, is a clinical social worker and psychotherapist in private practice. She is former chair of the Board of Social Work Examiners in Iowa. She has written a column on relationships for over nine years. The column is seen by over a million readers of both the statewide newspaper The Des Moines Register and newspapers nationwide. For this column she received a first-place writing award from the Menninger Foundation.

Jennifer has appeared on KCCI-TV news (a CBS affiliate) on topics ranging from dealing with the aftermath of 911 to coping with family stress at the holidays. Jennifer lectures to popular, as well as professional audiences on a range of mental health, relationship and clinical topics.

Jennifer was born in Maracaibo, Venezuela to American parents. Her father was a geologist with an American oil company and her mother was an elementary school teacher. Returning to the United States when Jennifer was five years old, she attended primary and secondary schools in Iowa. She did her undergraduate work at Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois and pursued independent research at Laval University, Quebec City, Canada as a guest of the Quebec government. She received her Master of Social Work degree from the University of Iowa; and received training in family therapy at the Menninger Foundation, Topeka, KS.

Jennifer lives in Des Moines with her husband David, and their two sons Christopher and Graham.

You can read her column in these newspapers, and others, around the country: