Jane Ariel is on the faculty at the Wright Institute in Berkeley, California, where she teaches family therapy and multicultural issues. She is in private practice in the Bay Area and both sees couples and families and is a consultant to therapists and training groups. She works as a consultant with Visions, a national organization dedicated to dealing with multicultural issues in a variety of settings.

Her clinical work focuses on both pychodynamic and systemic theory, with a particular emphasis on the interface between the two. Influenced by feminist and post-modern thought, her therapeutic work explores the effect of the social and cultural contexts that shape people's experience. Particularly interested in alternative families, she has written on therapy with gay and lesbian families as well as on mothering in the context of the Jewish family. In Israel, where she lived for many years, her work focused on the educational and social differences among Jewish minorities.

In AFTA, Dr. Ariel served on the Board of Directors from 2005 to 2007. She has also served as co-chair of the LGBT and Allies Interest Group and as co-facilitator of the White People and Accountability Group. She has been a long-time member of the Diversity Committee. She has also served on the Nominations Committee and co-led the Women's Institute in 1999.