Jessica Brown

I ultimately got into therapy after seeing just how big of a mental healthcare desert existed in this area in terms of the availability of affordable care. This is even more true for marginalized people living in the South. I've always been told that I'm a good listener and when I was in the military I eventually served as a counselor, talking to soldiers and officers about depression, anxiety, marriage and family issues, PTSD, and even gender dysphoria. In the years after serving, I found myself applying those skills in order to talk people through major issues they were having, including friends of mine in the LGBTQ+ community. I eventually decided to work towards a PhD in Psychology so that I'd be better able to serve people in need, particularly those who are in need but cannot afford professional help. Depression, anxiety, ADHD, autism, gender dysphoria and other LGBTQ+ issues, etc. should not be the taboos that they seem to be today. What motivates me to continue is seeing just how much I can help people by listening to them and coming up with a plan of action that puts them on a path towards recovery. My motivation is to shatter these taboos and get people to freely talk about their struggles so that they can be the person they truly want to be.

I'd like to think that I'm a pretty chill person and most everyone seems to really open up around me. It's hard to describe what a typical session looks like because no session is truly typical. Each patient has their own way of thinking, their own struggles that they bring to the table, and they click with me in different ways. Their sessions may be with me, but they are ultimately for them. When I first meet with a patient, I want to get a feel for them in a similar way to how I'd try to get to know a potential new friend. I want my patient to feel as comfortable as possible and to share with me whatever they feel comfortable with sharing during that first meeting. There is absolutely no obligation for a patient to share every single issue they're struggling with during that first session. Instead, I will work with them to try to identify what problems are important to them in that moment and that can serve as our starting point. After all, we may not always know every issue that we're dealing with. Sometimes we discover that what we thought was our issue is actually the symptom of something else. This is a journey of discovery for both of us, and each session is a waypoint along the road.

Despite the fact that depression seems like a common issue in today's world, it's actually one of the most unique issues out there. Depression affects everyone in their own way, even if we can identify certain commonalities that a lot of people suffering from depression experience. Medication can absolutely help to mitigate the symptoms of depression, particularly if the issue is chemical in nature, but my goal is to work with my patients to get to the heart of where their depression comes from, identifying as many of the triggers and causes that we can, and working with them to address as many of these issues as we can over time so that they can eventually reach a point where not only are they finally out of the quagmire, but they are putting a healthy distance between themselves and the things that have been dragging them down. I also always reinforce the fact that everyone can have an off day, an off week, or even an off month. It's okay to have setbacks, but it's through these setbacks that we can learn even more about ourselves, learn about new triggers that feed into the struggles we deal with, and come up with new strategies to help us overcome these things together.