Jennifer Coren Milgrom remembers the moment vividly. Four days into her first post-college job at a New York tech startup, her supervisor delivered crushing news: the company was going under. She was out of work before she’d even settled into her new life.
“I was like, well, I don’t have an income,” Milgrom recalled. Within weeks, she’d landed at Bloomberg, managing senior software engineers as a recruiter. But the experience of sudden upheaval, the disorientation of plans collapsing, and the scramble to reorient would become foundational to her life’s work.
Today, Milgrom is a licensed psychotherapist in Chicago, owner of Rhodes Wellness, a holistic psychotherapy practice, and author of “I Love Me More,” a book that tackles the emotional turbulence people in their 20s and 30s often experience. Her journey from University of Miami’s musical theater conservatory to private practice is itself a case study in navigating transitions, the very theme that animates both her clinical work and her writing.
Milgrom started working in counseling seven years ago and launched her private practice in January 2025. Today, she works with clients ages 20 to 60 from diverse backgrounds. What strikes her most is how similar their struggles are beneath the surface.
“Everybody is struggling with very, very similar life themes,” she said. “How to make sense of the unknown, how to deal with difficulty, how to accept where we’re at, when to make changes, how to know who we are throughout those changes.”
Milgrom’s path wasn’t linear. As a high school senior, she auditioned for 24 musical theater programs and earned admission to Miami’s competitive B.F.A. conservatory. But during her freshman year, she found herself increasingly drawn to psychology. The conservatory program couldn’t accommodate both disciplines, so she switched to a B.A. and committed to psychology.
The decision might seem like a departure, but Milgrom sees profound continuity. “If you think about it, my job now is very similar to listening to somebody have a monologue in a play,” she explains. “You listen to somebody, you hear their story, and you try to really understand how they’re feeling. Psychology and theater actually blend together.”
At the University, she worked in a health psychology research lab, traveling to schools across different socioeconomic backgrounds to teach health education. She performed in campus musicals. She was building a toolset: empathy, storytelling, and the ability to hold space for complex emotional narratives.
For younger clients, the post-college years bring challenges. The structure that organized life from elementary school through graduation disappears. “When the book isn’t written anymore, the script isn’t there. You can feel overwhelmed,” Milgrom explains. Add to that the pervasive influence of social media, and the result is what Milgrom identifies as a mental health crisis affecting this generation’s anxiety, depression, and self-esteem.
“I Love Me More” emerged from Milgrom’s recognition that many clients were struggling with the same challenges she’d faced, and that there was no roadmap for navigating them. At its center is the “Caterpillar to Butterfly Effect,” a four-stage model Milgrom developed to help people move through transitions, asking questions about values, identity, and direction.
“I felt like I was missing this when I graduated,” Milgrom says. “If you can’t afford therapy, you can pick this book up and feel like you just had a therapy session.”
The book’s title reflects Milgrom’s core philosophy. Self-love, in her framework, is the daily practice of speaking kindly to yourself, celebrating small wins, and measuring success by presence rather than achievement.
The book’s reach surprised even Milgrom. Forbes featured it at launch. Veronica Beard, the international clothing brand, recently hosted an event with her. Perhaps most meaningful: Readers in their 50s and 60s have written to say the book resonates with their own life transitions.
Reframing life’s obstacles as stepping stones is another theme that runs through Milgrom’s work. “I view hard parts of our lives as opportunities for us to get closer to ourselves, to get clearer about our values and who we want to be.”
If she could offer her college self one piece of advice, it would be the mantra that echoes through her book: “You are exactly where you’re supposed to be.”
“Nothing is forever,” she says now. “We make choices, we decide what’s going to be the next thing, and through that we learn about what works, or we use what fails as an opportunity to learn and grow. Either way, this mentality allows us not to put so much pressure on deciding. With that mindset, it will always work out.”
It’s advice born from her own lived experience, and it’s the message she hopes reaches any young adult navigating the unscripted years after graduation.
“You’re not alone,” Milgrom emphasizes. “Just because you’re struggling, it doesn’t mean that it’s bad. The struggles in the twenties are some of the most formative and most important times in your life because they help formulate who you are and who you want to be.”
For Milgrom, helping people sit with that discomfort, and find themselves within it, is the work. And it’s exactly where she’s supposed to be.
