Jessica Crenshaw

therapist

Jessica (Jessi) Crenshaw (she/her) is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW) who received her Bachelor’s in Social Work, with a Minor in Women and Gender Studies from NEIU, and obtained her Masters in Social Work degree from JACSW at UIC. Jessi has experience working in community mental health as a therapist, crisis intervention for runaway/lockout youth, providing trauma-informed services in a domestic violence shelter, and crisis intervention in emergency rooms for survivors of sexual assault. Jessi focuses her work primarily on teens and young adults and is trained in both domestic violence and sexual assault advocacy.

Jessi recognizes the strength in making the decision to begin one’s therapeutic journey and how daunting it can be to find the right therapist. Her focus is on ensuring the space feels safe enough to venture on your own healing journey, together.  Jessi is passionate about incorporating a therapeutic foundation rooted in an anti-racist, anti-oppressive, trauma-informed, and strong relational lens. Jessi welcomes all clients who are seeking a sex/kink-positive, polyam-affirming, gender-affirming, body/fat positive, and 2SLGBTQIA+ affirming therapist. She specializes in working with complex trauma, survivors of abuse, LGBTQ+ identity exploration, social anxiety, and primarily obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).

Jessi utilizes an approach that is empathetic, playful, gently-challenging, collaborative, introspective, casual, and welcomes the complexities that comes with life. She incorporates a mixture of different therapeutic modalities that center around becoming in tune with a person’s physical reactions to triggers and how to cope with this (somatic therapy/mindfulness), understanding a person's OCD cycles to gently begin exposure and build resiliency (eclectic exposure & response prevention therapy), and exploring a person’s inner-child to create space for self-compassion and healing (inner-child therapy/psychodynamic therapy). However, Jessi is passionate about avoiding a “one-size-fits-all” modality when working with clients, as every person is unique and the expert of their own life. 

Outside of therapy, Jessi enjoys a good scary movie, reality TV, listening to live music, going thrifting, or just existing with her two cats.

You can reach Jessi at jessica@headhearttherapy.com.