My Journey & What it Gave Me
(Extended About: My Lore - The Long Version)
A friend of mine once said about life, “everything in circles.” It may seem super weird and disparate that I’ll happily help someone overcome speech anxiety, teach an organization conflict management skills, gently support someone who has experienced abuse as they start dating again, and/or serve as an expert witness for a domestic violence case - all under the scope of my work.
But if my journey taught me anything, it’s that everything comes full circle when there’s a throughline.
For those interested in knowing a bit more about their coach before they jump in, here’s a breakdown of my journey and the highlights that inform my work today.
Early Years: Communication Studies & Coaching
Public Speaking & COM Fundamentals
My love for coaching and communication studies started more than 20 years ago during my undergrad. I took a required public speaking class my first semester — and like many of my future students — I was TERRIFIED. I’d been a shy, anxious kid who used theater and drama to come out of my shell, but speaking extemporaneously (planned, but not scripted) or impromptu was a whole different challenge. With the help of a great teacher (thank you, Dr. Erika Lamb!), I ended up winning a campus speech contest and gaining skills that would help me the rest of my life (e.g., COM 101 stuff - speaking and listening, persuasion, informative speaking/writing, audience analysis, etc.). Those fundamental tools stuck with me, and I still remind myself to “return to the basics” when I feel lost.
*Later, I would teach thousands of people the communication fundamentals that helped me improve my own skills and confidence, and now I get to help others feel more confident in the power of their voice, too.
Interpersonal Communication
I took more classes, changed my major 7 times. I always knew I wanted to be some kind of helper or teacher (maybe a therapist?). Then, I took an interpersonal communication class and never looked back. I had no idea how practical, useful, and life-changing these ideas could be. From even just one class (thank you, Scott Stackhouse!), I learned so much about relationships and how to improve them. I found mentors who showed me how interdisciplinary the field really is — how it connects performance, philosophy, sociology, psychology, and even STEM. (Thank you, Dr. Linda Kurz, Dr. Tom Poe, & Professor Robert (Bob) Unger!)
Communication studies felt like finding a cheat code for understanding how humans create meaning and navigate life together. Individual experience matters. Context matters. But my focus has always been on how meaning gets made through interaction — with ourselves, others, and society.
Consulting/Coaching
Facilitative consulting shaped how I teach, coach, and advocate. While earning my B.A., I worked at the UMKC Writing Center, and it laid the groundwork for everything I do. (Thank you, Dr. Thomas Ferrel!) As facilitative consultants and peer tutors, we didn’t “fix” people’s work or tell them what to do — we asked thoughtful questions, offered tools & information, and helped people create their best work in their own authentic voice. I got certified in Advanced Tutoring (woohoo!), and those principles and that approach stayed with me ever since - from teaching & mentoring in academia, to coaching, consulting, & being an advocate in the community.
After graduating, I worked in marketing and was invited back to UMKC to teach a night class in public speaking. I fell in love with teaching — using those Writing Center skills helping people find their voice, organize their thoughts, and speak with intention. So, back to school I went to chase my new dream of teaching at the college level.
Grad School Days: Bridging Theory with Practice
Dark/Bright Side Education & Training
Graduate school deepened everything. I entered my master’s program at the University of Kansas studying what communication scholars call the “dark side” of relationships — deception, conflict, harm, and the complicated ways people justify hurting each other. I was fascinated by how relationships break down and how communication patterns shape both damage and connection. Because there is always a “bright side,” too! I continued to learn about the continuum of (un)healthy relationship behaviors, and also about stress & coping, social support, group & organizational communication, positive psychology, gender & sexuality, women & violence, and research methods (how to best ethically and effectively study what we’re studying). (Thank you Drs. Adrianne Kunkel, Alesia Woszidlo, Tracy Russo, Yan Bing Zhang, Katy Cook, Brett Craig, Kiley Larson, Astrid Villamil, Barbara Kerr, Charlene Muehlenhard, Joey Sprague, Nancy Baym, and more!)
*As a life-long learner, I now get to share with others all the powerful relational insights and tools I’ve had the privilege to learn ever since.
Action Research
During my time at KU, I encountered something that shifted my trajectory. I was introduced to applied, social justice–oriented communication research (Thank you, Dr. Larry Frey!) — work that doesn’t just study social problems, but actively partners with communities to challenge them. Something clicked. I didn’t just want to analyze harm. I wanted to use my skills in a meaningful way for my community.
Interpersonal Violence Research & Advocacy
That shift led me into domestic violence work. I volunteered at a local DV center, completed advocate training, and eventually facilitated a DV support group for women in addiction treatment. I collaborated with agencies, helped coordinate services, and began conducting research alongside practitioners and survivors (and Drs. Adrianne Kunkel & Suzy D’Enbeau).
*Becoming a victim’s advocate further set the stage for all the work I did thereafter - whether working one-on-one with people affected by abuse, educating the community about gender-based violence, or doing systems advocacy by training and consulting on policies and cases that affect survivors.
What Survivors Taught Me
Clarifying Types of Abuse. Very quickly, I saw how messy and misunderstood interpersonal violence (IPV) research could be. Information about IPV varied in scholarship, practice, cultural stories, and the legal system. Survivors’ lived experiences didn’t always match what the literature suggested or what our culture teaches.
Then I encountered research distinguishing different patterns and types of violence, and things started to make more sense. (Thank you, Dr. Michael Johnson!) Not all violence in relationships comes from the same place, follows the same patterns, or requires the same responses. (Check out my blog post for more info regarding the difference between destructive conflict and intimate partner terrorism.) I field tested these ideas, and the women survivors I worked with overwhelmingly reported how helpful this information was.
*My dissertation and much of my later work grew directly from that insight. There is a difference between “crappy conflict skills” that escalate and using a whole system of behaviors to have power and control over another. So, I immersed myself further in learning the distinctions, recognizing them, and in turn, being able to better support survivors in the tools and resources that are actually appropriate for their situations (e.g., is this something that healthy conflict management would help, or is this a pattern of control?).
One of the clearest lessons I learned during those years was this: healing is supported when people are trusted as experts in their own lives, given accurate information, and allowed to make meaning on their own terms. That lesson has shaped everything I’ve done since.
I learned to work in ways that are trauma-informed & trauma-responsive, participatory, invitational, and collaborative — approaches that prioritize people’s autonomy and expertise in their own lives rather than assuming I know what’s best for someone else. I continue to work this way, grounded in the belief that people already hold far more capacity than they’re often encouraged to trust.
Professor Years: Research, Teaching, & Service
Professor things. After finishing my Ph.D., I became a professor. I taught classes involving public speaking and writing skills; professional communication; interpersonal communication; small group communication; conflict resolution; critical communication theories involving gender, sexuality, & race; and quantitative & qualitative methods. I mentored graduate students and published research. I served on editorial boards and engaged in peer review. I consulted with organizations and trained professionals. I served as an expert witness. I kept trying to bridge theory and practice.
Interdisciplinary research. Interdisciplinary work — working with scholars from others fields — was always a priority of mine because complex issues require complex responses. I continued to collaborate with scholars from social work, psychology, sociology, criminal justice. I became a fellow for a CDC-funded Gender-Based Violence Intervention and Prevention initiative and was mentored by the leading GBV scholar/activists in the country. I learned more about all forms of GBV (e.g., sexual harassment, sexual assault) and continued to learn from people doing the work on the ground.
Field work. As an ethnographic researcher, I learned by being in the room: shelters, treatment centers, classrooms, courtrooms, police departments, community organizations. My research was never confined to theory. It lived in real spaces where people were struggling, repairing, surviving, and rebuilding.
A tension. Over time, though, I felt tension building. Academia is meaningful and important work. But the “publish or perish” culture slowly pulled me further from the direct impact I cared about most. I missed working closely with people in my community. I missed the immediacy of helping in real time. Plus, the continuing censorship in universities was frankly something I did not want to contend with. We need accurate information more than ever, and I started to feel a call toward providing more accessible information to the public beyond the ivory towers.
A reminder. Over a decade earlier as a graduate student, my professor, Dr. Russo, asked us to write a paper about where we stood in the field.
Past Jenny wrote: “As a pragmatist who wants to engage in action research, I know that my work may not add many lines to my CV. However, I know that if I am lucky enough to have a long life, I will not look back with regret if I did not receive tenure at the most prestigious university, but I will have regret if I did not do work that I consider important and meaningful. I would much rather be in the trenches and trying to make any small ripples that can potentially better communities. To me, that is what my communication scholarship is – working with others to cope, heal, resist, and embrace our strengths.”
I did indeed earn tenure at a prestigious university. But I still had that same yearning that Jenny from the past had - to be back in the trenches. So, to many people’s surprise, I resigned about a year after earning tenure and started Through the Fray Coaching.
And around the same time, my personal life began asking more of me, too.
Back to the Field, My Roots — and Myself
Learning from others.
Before I was Dr. Guthrie, researcher, trainer, advocate, I was Jenny — someone trying to make sense of relationships the best way I knew how. Like many people who experience unhealthy or abusive dynamics, I minimized my own experiences. I explained things away. I focused on “fixing” my communication and myself. I tried harder. I believed that insight, effort, and compassion could solve what felt confusing but survivable.
In my research with people who had experienced abuse, I saw something over and over again: it’s incredibly hard to recognize abuse when you’re inside it. (There are so. many. reasons. for this.) Many people compare their experiences to extreme physical violence and decide that the abuse they experience “Isn’t that bad.” They describe how when it was good, it was really good — and when it was bad, it was really bad. They talk about how learning about emotional abuse and manipulation was a turning point.
The system of power and control behaviors rarely show up all at once. They work slowly. Boundaries are nudged. Self-trust is chipped away. Red flags don’t always look red — sometimes they look pink. Sometimes they look “normal” in a culture that hasn’t done a great job teaching us what healthy love actually looks like and requires. When harm is subtle or covert, it can be reframed as “relationship drama” or “bad conflict.” And when their partner is skilled at minimizing, denying, or shifting blame, of course it becomes hard to see clearly.
Me too.
With my research grounded in survivors’ voices, I taught, trained, consulted, coached, and advocated about power and control, coercion, and emotional abuse. Slowly, something unexpected happened.
Dr. Guthrie was sharing insights that Jenny needed to hear.
I would help others untangle their experiences and quietly think, me too. What I had framed as miscommunication or difficult conflict was, in important ways, about power and control. My academic work gave me the language. Survivors gave me courage and clarity.
Leaving harmful dynamics is rarely simple — and it can be dangerous. (There are countless reasons people don’t “just leave.” I will always respect your choices and your timing. You know what feels safest in your life.)
What we don’t talk about enough is the after. Once people were safe, the most common questions I was asked revolved around how to gain/maintain a support system and enact healthy relationships - with healthy conflict, boundaries, and respect - after abuse. For me, that became the deepest work of all. And I was asking those questions, too.
The “After.”
I immersed myself in my recovery — therapy, somatic healing, reworking old coping strategies, setting boundaries, unlearning people-pleasing, practicing secure communication, rebuilding safety in my body and relationships. In many ways, I became my own experiment — applying the very tools I had taught and studied for years.
And I learned something essential: Communication and relationship tools do work — when they are practiced in environments of mutual respect, accountability, and care.
Healing isn’t just about noticing red flags. It’s about practicing green ones and building relationships that feel steady, reciprocal, and safe.
