At the heart of Jessica’s work is a commitment to the value and wisdom of our embodied relational selves, our deep interconnectedness, and a passion for looking at and making space for that which is usually invisible, unrecognized, or undervalued. She believes that we all have a fundamental need to experience a sense of embodied freedom as well as embodied belonging. In her work with clients, groups, and other practitioners she draws on her study and practice of somatic, physiological, and psychological modalities. her own lived experience, and a commitment to exploring the new, the old, and the unknown.

Jessica’s professional roots began as a birth doula and homebirth midwife assistant, both of which were practices with minimal training beyond the basics of birth physiology and medical intervention. Jessica found herself working at the intersection of many of the elements that make up our humanity, both historically and in contemporary Colonialism. At the age of 23, she was working with modern medicine, intimate partnerships, family histories, power dynamics, sexuality, access to one’s own voice, and much more. As such, what she was seeing with her clients didn’t match what the books and classes had taught her. And so began her work of experimentation and relentless study to make sense of the invisible, unrecognized, and undervalued parts of the perinatal parent, family, and baby. Over decades of study of various modalities, including Zen Buddhism, massage therapy, Somatic Experiencing® (SE), relational psychotherapy, and more, she found pieces of truth and skills but also gaps. When Jessica began to study with Kathy Kain, diving deep into her somatic approach to healing, major gaps began to fill in, tying together all the various studies and practices Jessica had accrued through the years. More than ten years of study with Kathy, has put this work at the foundation of the way Jessica understands and approaches her work and her own healing and growth processes.

Jessica’s more recent study with Betty Martin, creator of The Wheel of Consent, along with studying sacred intimacy and Somatic Sex Education have been pivotal in her ability to understand and work with the erotic as it lives in us all and so often becomes overly simplified to sex. Jessica has found how the erotic is a place where much of what remains invisible to us gets buried and, thus, how impactful it can be for there to be safe and consensual education and support in healing the erotic, and thus healing the whole self.

Jessica integrates physiology, the study of early developmental phases and experience from years of working in the fields of pregnancy, childbirth and the postnatal year, SE®,  an understanding of the human drive to survive, a passion for transformative justice, eroticism, and the deep need for connection and interdependence in her work supporting clients, groups, and professionals who want to understand more about working somatically in an integrative fashion that is within their own scope of practice, that supports liberation. She approaches each client and practitioner with a deep respect for their individual experience and the knowledge that through mutual skills and collaboration so much more becomes possible.

She believes all practitioners in the helping professions have a strong drive to be of service, and that can often get muddied with conflicting ideas of different modalities, limits in scope of practice, lack of clarity about what is the practitioners’ job and what is the clients’ job, and much more. In her consultations she seeks to help professionals identify their own skills, the necessary limits to their skills, trust in themselves, the ability to recognize the resilience of the client, and how to approach both treatment planning and specific challenges with a client in a way that is empowering and expansive for all.