Jessica "Jess" Wybenga (She/Her)
Marriage Family Therapist Trainee
Tel: (510) 496 6002 ext. 26
Tel: (510) 496 6002 ext. 26
|
"Maybe the journey isn’t about becoming anything. Maybe it’s about unbecoming everything that isn’t really you, so that you can be who you were meant to be in the first place."
|
Jess approaches therapy as a space for slowing down, softening, and reconnecting with what is most true. She offers a warm, grounded, and creative presence where clients can explore themselves with curiosity and without pressure to perform or “get it right.” She believes therapy is a place where people can hear their own voice more clearly and begin to trust it.
Jess came to this work through lived experience and a deep interest in how family systems, culture, and identity shape emotional patterns and ways of coping. She understands how anxiety, depression, self-abandonment, and people-pleasing can emerge as adaptive responses to survival and disconnection. Her path into therapy is grounded in supporting greater self-awareness, healing, and authenticity.
Jess came to this work through lived experience and a deep interest in how family systems, culture, and identity shape emotional patterns and ways of coping. She understands how anxiety, depression, self-abandonment, and people-pleasing can emerge as adaptive responses to survival and disconnection. Her path into therapy is grounded in supporting greater self-awareness, healing, and authenticity.
|
She understands healing as a process of returning to oneself rather than becoming someone new. Jess believes many of the struggles clients carry are not personal failures, but responses to relational, cultural, and systemic pressures. Her work supports clients in building self-awareness, softening internal criticism, and creating space for more choice, authenticity, and care.
Jess’s style is collaborative, affirming, and relational. She draws from mindfulness, somatic awareness, parts-informed work, and creative expression to support clients in slowing down and reconnecting with mind, body, and emotion. She sees therapy as a space for exploration and discovery, where insight can emerge gently over time. In session, Jess offers a warm and steady presence. She supports clients in noticing sensations, emotions, and patterns as they arise, and may integrate grounding practices, visualization, or creative modalities such as art when helpful. She believes humor, lightness, and creativity can also support healing when they feel natural and grounding. |
|
She understands the mind, body, and emotions as deeply interconnected and shaped by both internal experience and external relational systems. When one part of the system is overwhelmed, the others are impacted, and healing involves restoring connection across these layers.
Jess emphasizes safety, trust, and autonomy in the therapeutic relationship. She sees therapy as a collaborative process where clients are not being fixed, but supported in reconnecting with their own inner wisdom and capacity for change.
Jess works with clients navigating life transitions, anxiety, grief and loss, shame, perfectionism, people-pleasing, boundaries, body image concerns, and identity exploration. She is especially drawn to supporting clients who are seeking personal growth, self-expression, and a deeper sense of alignment.
She works best with clients who are curious about themselves and open to exploring change at a gentle and sustainable pace. Jess believes healing involves both acceptance and transformation, and that meaningful change grows from learning to trust oneself more fully.
Clinical areas of interest:
Jessica Wybenga is a Marriage Family Therapist Trainee, working under the supervision of Jeanette Shelby, LMFT, License #127144. She is pursuing a Masters in Integral Counseling Psychology at California Institute of Integral Studies.
Jess emphasizes safety, trust, and autonomy in the therapeutic relationship. She sees therapy as a collaborative process where clients are not being fixed, but supported in reconnecting with their own inner wisdom and capacity for change.
Jess works with clients navigating life transitions, anxiety, grief and loss, shame, perfectionism, people-pleasing, boundaries, body image concerns, and identity exploration. She is especially drawn to supporting clients who are seeking personal growth, self-expression, and a deeper sense of alignment.
She works best with clients who are curious about themselves and open to exploring change at a gentle and sustainable pace. Jess believes healing involves both acceptance and transformation, and that meaningful change grows from learning to trust oneself more fully.
Clinical areas of interest:
- Anxiety and emotional overwhelm
- Grief, loss, and life transitions
- Self-esteem, identity exploration, and self-understanding
- People-pleasing, boundaries, and relational patterns
- Body image and self-relationship
- Relational stress, family dynamics, and developmental trauma (supportive, non-acute work)
Jessica Wybenga is a Marriage Family Therapist Trainee, working under the supervision of Jeanette Shelby, LMFT, License #127144. She is pursuing a Masters in Integral Counseling Psychology at California Institute of Integral Studies.
