Psychotherapist
she/her
Jessica works with adolescents and adults who are looking for support in understanding themselves better, coping with difficult emotions, and moving towards the lives they want to live. Her approach centers on curiosity—about patterns of behaviors, thoughts, emotions, and relationships, about how the patterns developed, and about how to change those that are holding a client back or contributing to their suffering.
Jessica’s background is in community mental health, where she has supported people through depression, anxiety, relationship struggles, grief, recovery from addiction, and healing from trauma. She works with an understanding that personal difficulties don’t exist in a vacuum; they’re shaped by culture, identity, and the larger systems that affect access, opportunity, and belonging.
Jessica’s therapeutic foundation is psychodynamic, relational, and trauma-informed, and she uses behavioral therapy techniques when helpful or preferred. Psychodynamic therapy helps clients understand the “why” behind their feelings and behaviors. Relational therapy views relationships as central to who we are, and explores how clients connect with others, what patterns show up in their relationships, and how those dynamics might also appear in the client-therapist relationship. Trauma-informed therapy prioritizes safety, choice, and working at the client’s pace, as well as recognizing that behaviors that might seem confusing or self-defeating often make sense when viewed through the lens of survival and adaptation to difficult circumstances.
When it’s useful, Jessica incorporates practical tools and skill-building drawn from Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). These approaches offer concrete strategies for managing overwhelming emotions, tolerating distress, coping with intrusive thoughts, improving sleep, and helping clients align their actions with what matters most to them. Some clients prefer using behavioral therapy techniques when they are seeking to address troubling emotions or behaviors without extensive discussion of the nature of past experiences and traumas. Ultimately, Jessica tailors her approach to each person, working collaboratively to incorporate the strategies and methods that align with their preferences and support their specific goals.
Before becoming a therapist, Jessica’s work involved translating scientific research into language that made sense to general audiences. That background shapes her approach to therapy: she’s committed to explaining psychological ideas in a way that makes them clear and relevant to people’s real lives.
Credentials
- Master of Science in Mental Health Counseling, The University of Massachusetts, Boston