About Jessica Backus
Counseling Intern
My primary goal as a therapist is to provide an affirmative and supportive environment in which you feel comfortable exploring and experiencing true authenticity within yourself and in navigating that authenticity across relationships and different spaces. I believe that by living the most authentic version of ourselves we can then embrace experiencing the full range of emotions that life offers us, including difficult emotions and thoughts, unpleasant memories and unwanted urges and sensations, with courage, radical acceptance and deep compassion. I’ll establish an environment with you where you feel at ease collaborating with me to empower you to initiate and maintain sustainable changes towards developing a life that aligns with your values and morals. I’m committed to better understanding how the unique combination of the intersecting characteristics of your identity, including sexuality, gender, race, religion, and socioeconomic status influence your experiences with yourself, in your relationships with others, and within in this world. My training is in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and Motivational Interviewing with a mindfulness and strengths-based therapeutic approach.
As a queer identifying and LGBTQIA+ affirming clinician, I aspire to foster an empathetic, radically compassionate and non-judgmental environment. Some areas of my focus include anxiety, depression, trauma, PTSD, substance use, gender and sexual identity exploration, work-related stress and sex-related concerns.
I received my Bachelors degree in Neuroscience from Smith College and am currently working towards my Masters of Science in Clinical Mental Health Counseling at Purdue University Northwest. In my free time I enjoy cooking and trying new recipes, meditating and doing yoga, creating mix-tape style playlists for my friends, viewing contemporary/modern ballet performances and attending symphony concerts, hiking and getting outside, and playing with my cat.
As a queer identifying and LGBTQIA+ affirming clinician, I aspire to foster an empathetic, radically compassionate and non-judgmental environment. Some areas of my focus include anxiety, depression, trauma, PTSD, substance use, gender and sexual identity exploration, work-related stress and sex-related concerns.
I received my Bachelors degree in Neuroscience from Smith College and am currently working towards my Masters of Science in Clinical Mental Health Counseling at Purdue University Northwest. In my free time I enjoy cooking and trying new recipes, meditating and doing yoga, creating mix-tape style playlists for my friends, viewing contemporary/modern ballet performances and attending symphony concerts, hiking and getting outside, and playing with my cat.
