About Jessica

Hi, I am Jessica. I am part of Leanne's care team, and I work with teens 16 and older, adults, couples, and families, in-person in Kitchener and virtually across Ontario.

Many of the people I work with are in a season they did not choose. Losing someone they love, or preparing to. Caring for a parent with dementia while trying to hold the rest of life together. Rebuilding after an injury. Leaning on food, or shopping, or staying busy, to get through feelings that have nowhere else to go. Some arrive knowing exactly what they want to work on. Others are not sure where to begin. Both are okay.

In my first semester of university, I sat in an introductory social work course and listened to the professor describe the work as walking with others and helping them bear the burdens they carry. It hit me at a gut level. I can do this. I want to do this. Maybe I am called to do this. I thought of the people who had walked with me up to that point in my life, and I have been following that calling ever since.

For nearly 20 years, it has taken me through hospital rehabilitation, brain injury and accident recovery, and private practice. Through all of it, I kept being drawn back to the kind of deep relationship that can only grow in therapy.

I know what it is like to sit in the other chair.

Therapy has helped me in my own life, and I value it deeply. The right therapist can help untangle what is too close to see clearly, or join you in a place where you feel utterly, even hopelessly, lost.

My childhood was, by all accounts, stable and loving. I was also often on the receiving end of my mother's anger, which I now understand came from her own unresolved trauma. I grew up in the tension of loving her while being deeply afraid of her reactions. As a parent, I have had to face how those early experiences shaped me, too.

I also grew up in a Christian home, with a father closely involved in church leadership. I know faith can be the cornerstone of a life. I also know organized religion can be a deeply flawed and painful place to find yourself. If faith, spirituality, or Christian dynamics are part of your story, you will not have to explain or defend them here. I am comfortable going there with you.

Loss has marked many chapters of my life. Preparing for death, talking about death, and living in its wake is work I have faced personally, and it is work I feel drawn to as a therapist. Closely tied to it is caregiving. I see caregiving as a sacred role, but not always one we get to choose. It can be fulfilling and exhausting at the same time, and it confronts us with our limits and our own humanity.

So this is how I show up for you.

Our sessions will feel relaxed and conversational, but never aimless. Together, we look at what is working, what is not, and where you would like to go. You do not need a tidy version of your story. Your vulnerability will be met with care, curiosity, and acceptance.