Jessica Hilton

About Jessica

You may understand yourself well and still find the same patterns repeating. You brace, shut down, over-function, accommodate, or push through, even when part of you knows it is no longer working. This may show up as burnout, chronic stress, anxiety, relationship difficulties, chronic pain, substance use, or trauma-related reactions. I often work with people in helping and caregiving roles who are used to being capable, dependable, and available to others, but have had far less space to consider what that has cost them.

I am an active and engaged therapist. I pay attention not only to what you tell me, but to what happens while you are telling it. We may notice a change in your posture or breath, an emotion that appears and quickly disappears, an impulse to pull away, or something that happens between us in the room. These moments can tell us a great deal about how a pattern operates in the rest of your life.

My work is experiential and body-based, drawing from Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, and relational approaches. I am interested in how earlier experiences continue to shape present-day reactions. Instead of treating a response as something we need to get rid of, we look at how it developed, what purpose it may have served, and whether it still fits your life now.

Many of my clients have been to therapy before. They may understand why they respond the way they do. They may have the language, insight, and coping strategies, yet still find themselves caught in the same reactions. Our work focuses on what keeps repeating and what becomes possible when we slow those patterns down and work with them as they happen.

I believe therapy should have a purpose. We identify what you want to change, notice what gets in the way, and experiment with different ways of responding. The goal is more choice, flexibility, and personal agency. I want what you develop in therapy to become something you can use in your relationships, your work, and your life without needing to rely on therapy indefinitely.

If you are looking for an experienced practitioner who will be thoughtful, direct, curious, and actively involved in the work with you, I would be glad to hear from you.