Jessica Gerloff - MFT Student Therapist
Jessica comes from a multi-faceted and diverse background. Traveling around the world throughout her childhood, adolescence and adulthood has culminated in an empathetic and compassionate approach to anyone she meets. As a child of an active-duty military father, she had to move every three years. With every new move, she learned to adapt to situations, cultures, and structured systems to survive. This ability has affected every aspect of her career. As the Director of Social Services for a 180-bed Skilled Nursing Facility, she learned what true advocacy and compassion are. Serving a lower-income socioeconomic caseload introduced her to the many trials and tribulations of not only happiness but survival.
Jessica’s main focus is saving families. Divorce being all too common, she hopes to help reverse this trend and help couples and families adjust to life changes, and hold strong against the outside forces that seem to be pulling them apart. Children are affected on such a deep level, regardless of the amicability of the parents. With the introduction of new Step-parents, brothers and sisters, two homes and completely different realities, It is her hope to help the persons without a voice speak up and through her directed advocation, create a familial system that truly benefits all.
Grief is a lesson Jessica has had to learn from many different aspects of loss. Friends, children, family members and loved ones. With no choice in this part of life’s inevitable process, this has become a major focus for her in pursuit of her degree. Helping others through the terribly difficult reality of grief and working together to find compassion, understanding and growth. Jessica believes that every person has a story, and every story has in one way or another impacted our experiences and current realizations. There will always be times that perhaps the client needs a safe place to speak and share their pain. Jessica understands this and that in reality, direction or advice often fails to alleviate this kind of pain. As human beings, we all need to feel connection.
Jessica believes wholeheartedly that our experiences and stories are the only truth we keep. As such, she considers it an honor to have her clients share and entrust her with their most personal, familial, or situationally adverse concerns and forming a plan together that will be most beneficial for everyone’s needs. Happiness is the goal and may not always feel like a choice, many of us struggle with how to do this in the face of an ever-changing world. It is Jessica’s hope to utilize her learned therapeutic modalities, empathy, experience, and concern to help others learn how to make choices and change their behaviors to allow for this incredible metamorphosis in their own lives.