Jessica Escutia Calderon, LCSW, (she/hers): I am a bilingual, trauma-informed, relational feminist therapist. My work is grounded in psychodynamic and liberation-based practices. I believe that you are the expert of your own experiences and hold innate wisdom in knowing what healing looks like for you and therefore encourage my participants to bring their full and authentic selves into our work.
I take on a client-centered approach to therapy and acknowledge the importance of cultural humility, respect, and self-determination in building a safe therapeutic relationship. I believe that true transformation and healing happens in the context of authentic, secure relationships and prioritize co-creating a therapeutic space that honors all your intersecting identities.
I utilize an integrative style to meet the goals and needs of each participant of therapy. I recognize all the complicated ways that complex and developmental trauma can impact a person on a biological, physical and spiritual level. Therefore, I center neurobiological and relational approaches that offer opportunities for people to begin to experience life with hope, ease, and aliveness. This is done through tending to those parts of ourselves that helped us at one point survive but may be preventing us from showing up in the ways we’d like, nonjudgmentally and with compassion.
I have experience working with adolescents and adults, people impacted by intergenerational and systemic trauma, people who have experienced migration trauma, people who have experienced community violence, those living with chronic pain or illnesses and folks exploring their neurodiversity.
Education and Credentials
I think that love is a requirement of principled struggle, both self-love and love of others, that we must all do what we can, that it is better to do something rather than nothing, that we have to trust others as well as ourselves. I often repeat the adage that “hope is a discipline.” We must practice it daily.
What do you like to do when you are not working? What do you do for fun?
When I am not working, I enjoy being a dog mom! My Shih-Tzu brings so much joy and wisdom to my life. He has taught me so much about honoring his sentience, patience, and centering joy and care in my relationships. For fun, I love listening to Beyoncé, watching a good show, and going antiquing.
What are you excited about? What is your passion? What do you want to learn more about?
I am most excited about supporting first-generation and immigrant professionals and folks in helping and healing professions (nurses, teachers, social workers, attorneys, etc.). As an immigration trauma survivor myself, I also enjoy supporting those who are healing from migration-related and post-migration trauma.
As an abolitionist, I am also passionate about being a healing practitioner that views the work from a decolonial and anti-oppressive framework. I recognize that colonialism and white supremacy have enacted trauma on a global scale and I am intentional about centering ancestral and indigenous ways of healing and reclaiming healing and wellness. I have seen personally and professionally how transformative healing can be when we collectively work towards resisting systemic and individual harm enacted on the land, spirit, mind, and body.
I am also interested in learning more about the neuroaffective relational model and other approaches that center somatic experiencing within the context of complex and developmental trauma. Lastly, I am interested in becoming certified in trauma-informed weightlifting with the Center for Trauma and Embodiment.
What’s your “go to” creative or restorative outlet?
My restorative outlets include going to the gym, reading a romance novel, and engaging in community care. I love going on clean up walks with my family at my local neighborhood park! I also enjoy engaging in energy and spiritual work and learning about the applications of tarot and astrology.
