Did you know TikTok’s ‘TherapyJeff’ is based in Portland?

Published 8:00 am Friday, March 28, 2025

Jeff Guenther, better known online as "TherapyJeff," started his social media following from the comforts of his home in Portland.

Jeff Guenther, known online as “TherapyJeff,” has thousands of spiffy, compiled lists on the topic of relationship advice. His filming location donned with floating shelves, against a purple wall, decorated with blue, fuzzy die, amethyst crystals and cassette tapes. 

Nine out of 10 times, he’s dressed in flannel, hands crossed, ready to share his latest enlightenment. 

In the era of doom scrolling, Guenther, a Portland-based relationship therapist, has likely crossed virtually anyone’s feed who has a TikTok or Instagram account. 

What some consider to be a social media celebrity, Guenther started what became a following of millions from his Portland residence. 

“I love wearing flannels and this is the place to do it,” he joked when asked why he moved to the Rose City. 

His snappy, brightly thumbnailed videos are a landing spot for “planting a seed,” getting viewers to critically think about their lives, or sometimes serving as a place for validation.

From “10 things to talk to your partner about before moving in,” to “4 reasons why therapy content on social media might actually be harming you,” Guenther has thousands of posts among millions of followers. 

“My boss is ‘Daddy Algorithm,'” he said. 

As a social media creator, one of the best perks for Guenther is meeting local fans. 

“People have the sweetest things to say, very heartfelt, like, ‘You got me through a hard time. Thank you so much for your content,’ and it keeps me grounded,” he said. “If anybody sees me in Portland, they can totally interrupt my dinner.”

Growing up in California  

Guenther is from Santa Monica, California, and while he said growing up in Los Angeles in the ’80s and ’90s was pretty great, surrounded by crashing waves and sunny, blue skies, he didn’t really like it. 

“It’s so big and sprawling, it goes on forever, and it gave me a feeling of being lost or not feeling grounded,” Guenther said. 

The culture was tailored to his liking of music, first getting into “Snoop Doggy Dog” and Dr. Dre at 12 years old, before Green Day dropped its “Dookie” album, stealing the top spot in his heart.

“That felt like the most important album to me as a kid and probably still is the most important album to me as an adult,” Guenther said. 

Alternative music controlled his life: Green Day, Weezer, Blink-182, Oasis and Third Eye Blind, to name a few. 

These influential albums released when Guenther was in middle school, which he described as a time he felt disconnected from his family. 

“When I was home, I felt really alone,” he said. 

Listening to the tunes his friends were helped him feel bonded to people. 

Guenther pushed through middle and high school before heading to Santa Barbara City College in 1999, where he got “really bad grades,” before transferring to San Diego State University to study child development. 

The plan: become a preschool teacher. 

And become a preschool teacher he did. 

It only took one year for Guenther to realize his vision of playing with and inspiring children all day would stay a dream, discovering his days were spent mainly doing classroom management. 

He wrapped up his undergrad and headed straight for a master’s degree at University of Southern California in marriage and family therapy. 

Trading beaches for trees

It took Guenther two weeks after completing his master’s to pack his bags and hit the road to Portland. 

Convincing him to get to the City of Roses didn’t take much. There were two contributing factors. For those guessing the gorgeous landscape, changing seasons, vibrant music scene or abundance of foodie endeavors, guess again. 

Guenther moved for two reasons: because a girl he had a huge crush on from his cohort was from Portland and because a psychic told him he would. 

“I went after grad school was done and never looked back,” Guenther said. 

He moved in 2005 and started working at ProtoCall Services, a suicide crisis line in Downtown Portland; it was a heavy one year of his life. 

“That had me burnt out pretty quickly,” he said.

Next was a job at Trillium Family Services, essentially working as a child and family therapist in the Gresham-Barlow School District. Guenther did child and family therapy and taught parenting classes.

Again, he faced immense burnout. 

“When you’re doing child therapy, it’s usually the parents’ fault, so they need to be the ones to come in, change, grow and evolve,” Guenther explained. “I couldn’t stand it because the parents were so resistant. They just wanted me to quote-unquote fix their child.” 

At 26 years old, Guenther decided to open a private practice, working exclusively with people in their 20s and 30s looking for individual and couples counseling. 

Then, he founded a local therapist directory called the Portland Therapy Center, and soon after, he started a national therapy directory called Therapy Den, which he sold a few years back. On the side, Guenther rented out part-time office spaces to local therapists to help them start their own practices at affordable prices.

Guenther was enmeshed with the mental health world with the addition of the business side of things. 

Social media boom

When the pandemic hit, many flocked to the comforts of social media sites like Instagram and TikTok. It was a place for relatability, community and connection in a time where much was lacking. 

Guenther, like the rest, had time on his hands. So much that he spend months bingeing all 40 seasons of “Survivor” back-to-back with his girlfriend, which for the record, is an estimated 440 hours. 

Once he finished, he said he was “starving for something creative.” 

Guenther used social media in a limited capacity before becoming an influencer. A scroll through the feed here and there, liking family and friends’ posts, but really didn’t post much of anything himself. 

MySpace was his personal favorite. 

His feed flooded with therapists and mental health related content, so he thought:

“I think I can do this, and I think I can do it better.” 

After about four videos were posted, he went viral. It was a video about five things to ask your therapist the next time you see them. His following shot up. 

“The first posts I ever did (on social media), in any sort of meaningful way, were my TherapyJeff posts,” he said. 

Guenther said his following continued climbing after a public fight with a therapy app company — that he cannot name for legal purposes — in which he worked to inform the community of the controversial and exploitative practices of the brand.

Despite the dilemma, he was able to advocate against the brand and in turn gained an unexpected following. 

As the fans grew, Guenther shifted focus on giving relationship advice. In therapy, he often gives one-liners to his couples, so he just started sharing them online. Slowly, it became a career, doing sponsored content, making a Patreon and more. 

Guenther started his socials under the name “TherapyDen,” related to his former national therapy directory, but it caused some slight problems. 

His followers thought his name was Dan. 

“It was so f—ing frustrating,” Guenther said laughing. It only took a few months of frustration for him to make the shift to “TherapyJeff.”

As Jeff Guenther, licensed professional counselor, the impacts of his work is personal and intimate. As “TherapyJeff,” social media personality, he’s able to share broad, less nuanced advice, which he aims to help provoke critical thinking and provide validation — or for some, pure entertainment — to his audience.

“I’m just trying to plant seeds,” he said.

The main question he receives from his viewers: “Is it okay for me to feel….”

Filling in the blank with a range of emotions from anxious to worried to jealous or insecure. 

“It’s okay to feel anything,” Guenther said. “You get to decided how you want to respond to that feeling or how you want to behave based on that feeling.” 

What he made clear, is he’s not advice giving as a therapist. His clients don’t receive these packaged lists of, “Here’s why you should breakup with your boyfriend,” he’s helping them find their authentic answer. Within social media, he’s able to show more of his personality and be advice giving. 

“It’s a real different vibe and I love that,” Guenther said. 

Since starting his social media career he hasn’t accepted any new clients. 

Guenther said some potential clients want “TherapyJeff” to be their therapist; they’re looking for who he is online. 

In his past few years of working as a social media creator, Guenther said he’s thankful for the destigmatization of mental health and therapy these platforms allowed. 

He has two podcasts, “Problem Solved” and “Big Dating Energy,” along with a book titled “Big Dating Energy: How to Create Lasting Love by Tapping Into Your Authentic Self.”

Up next, a “silly little dream” of his is to be a therapist on a dating reality show. 

“It’s a tough time to be online right now, but there’s lot of lovely things about it like being seen, having influence and it’s a creative outlet,” Guenther said. “It might sound ridiculous, but this feels like my art.”