About

Bio
Jessie was born in Annapolis, MD with a love of the healing arts. She earned a B.A. in Social Work and Cultural Anthropology from Kenyon College and a M.A. in Systemic Counseling from Bastyr University, a renowned holistic healing arts university near Seattle, Washington. She’s a licensed mental health counselor and a yoga teacher, and in a marriage of these two, she is certified in Integrated Movement Therapy (IMT), a modality that combines talk therapy with yoga philosophy, postures and movements in the treatment of various mental, emotional, physical and spiritual issues.Over the years, Jessie has worked with Depression, Anxiety, Bipolar Disorder, ADHD/ADD, Schizoaffective Disorder, Schizophrenia, self-mutilation, disordered eating, grief and loss, and with those who are struggling with major life transitions such as death, birth, illness, physical pain or injury, relationship changes and community changes.

Jessie is trained through the Samarya Center, the birthplace of IMT, whose purpose is to heal our communities through yoga and whose mission is to foster individual transformation as a means to radical social change. While she adores the west coast and still has a strong community there, she returned to Annapolis in 2011 with a dedication to spread her knowledge of this integrated modality to the east coast. She is passionate about lifelong learning, and receives ongoing peer support and supervision from various practitioners, including Molly Lannon-Kenny and Stephanie Sisson, founders of The Samarya Center and well-known movers & shakers in the Yoga Therapy world.

What others have to say about Jessie:

“I am very grateful for this wonderful opportunity to work with Jessie and learn more about IMT. Even in such a short time, Jessie helped me understand and combat issues that had always had a negative effect in my life. I thoroughly enjoyed the combination of breathing, movement and relaxation/visualization exercises. Jessie is intelligent, very knowledgeable and has an excellent, effective way of communicating that makes her so easy to understand. She treated me with the utmost respect, and her kindness and caring ways absolutely radiate from her. I feel she really cared and had my best interests at heart.”
–IMT client

“Jessie is an open-hearted, curious and steady presence. She is inquisitive, insightful and full of hope. She also has an immense capacity to hold space for others and to be a witness to a person’s process. She is a gift to the world of yoga, mental health, yoga therapy, the east coast, the west coast, and the world at large.”
Laura Humpf, LMFT, Samarya Center Director of Yoga Teaching and IMT-certified therapist.

“…I learned how to be with hard times and hard feelings without having to run or numb or pretend. There’s nothing I felt I couldn’t share, which helped me uncover some hidden pieces in myself, and in turn, to learn how to be there for others suffering in the same ways.”
–Student in Yoga for Anxiety series