I see you.
Life can be overwhelming, therapy can help. But traditional therapy doesn’t work for everyone.
If you’ve found yourself struggling to solve the issues you’ve been facing, maybe it’s time to try something new, such as Art Therapy. EMDR, or Ketamine-Assisted Therapy. Alternatives to talk therapy can help people calm their nervous system, heal from the effects of trauma, alleviate symptoms of chronic illness, reduce anxiety triggers, and live more meaningful lives.
Unconventional therapy for unconventional people
Jess Minckley (they/them) is an artist, art therapist and mental health counselor, entrepreneur, and educator. They are a lifelong learner with experience working with people with a variety of complex psychological issues. Read on to find out more.
Learn more about Jess here
Imagine a safe space to heal.
Jess is a member of the +++LGBTQIA2S+++ community. They are gender-affirming & sex-positive. They are allied with people who hold marginalized identities, including sexual identity: those in the kink community and those who practice consensual non-monogamy (CNM).
They are body-positive, which extends far beyond health at every size (HAES) and into stigmatized shapes, disability, disfiguration, and body differences. They aspire to be antiracist and anti-oppression by employing a Liberation Psychology framework, which means they actively engage in dismantling systems of oppression, including in the therapeutic arena. The Feminist approach means more egalitarian relationshipping than you may be accustomed to in therapy.
Affirming of
Black & African American people, Indigenous people, and people of color
transgender, non-binary, intersex, and otherwise gender diverse individuals
the neurodivergent & people with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)
members of the d/Disability community
people living with chronic illness and/or pain
those who experience altered states of consciousness
individuals who struggle with addictions
Services We Offer
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Mental Health Counseling & Art Therapy
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Gender-Affirming Care Letters
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Psychedelic-assisted Psychotherapy
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Private Practice Coaching
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Education: What is Art Therapy?
Art Therapy
I am an ATR : Registered Art Therapist
The Registered Art Therapist (ATR) is the credential that ensures an art therapist meets established standards, with successful completion of advanced specific graduate-level education in art therapy and supervised post-graduate art therapy experience.
My ATR credential number is: # 22-455 which you can verify on the website of the Art Therapy Credentials Board
What is Art Therapy?
Art therapy is awesome! In practical terms, it’s using creative modes of processing and expression to promote healing alongside regular talk therapy. The Creative Arts Therapies (CAT) include writing, music, dance, drama, and more.
Art therapy clients may use traditional tools, such as paint, pastels, colored pencils, various kinds of sculpture, ceramics, or things like photography, collage, making comics, video, or digital art. These healing methods can be combined with movement, visualization, meditation, and/or community interventions ranging from magic to performance.
Art therapists work in many kinds of places, from community mental health clinics to private practice settings, hospitals, veteran’s organizations, schools, forensic settings, group homes and senior centers, colleges, and also less traditional settings such as art museums and international humanitarian aid trips.
A variety of mental & physical health conditions can be treated using art therapy. It’s not just for kids, (although children and adolescents benefit much because they don’t always know how to articulate their feelings, or they do so through dramatic play).
Art therapy as a discipline is a nationally regulated mental health profession. The American Art Therapy Association (AATA) sets ethical standards. The Art Therapy Credential Board (ATCB) gives credentials. Art therapists are artists who have master’s level training in counseling or family therapy in addition to art-based therapy methods and techniques. Their credentials can be Provisional (ATR-P), Registered Art Therapist (ATR), and can include Board Certification (ATR-BC). Do not endeavor to do art therapy with anyone who does not have these letters after their name as they may not be trained at all in art therapy!
Jess Minckley is a registered art therapist (ATR), approved by the credentials board in 2022, license # 22-455. You can double check that on their website HERE.
In art therapy, your brain’s two hemispheres have a new opportunity to connect in a healing way– nonverbally. Fascinating research is now available, which describes the neurological parallel processes and the integration of the “creative mind” (the right hemisphere) and the “logical mind” (the left hemisphere). Bilateral drawing has similar efficacy and can be combined with, eye movement reprocessing and desensitization (EMDR).
Creative processes can “unlock” buried content without re-traumatizing clients by asking them to verbally recount painful memories. If you have tried talk therapy and it didn’t help, or if you tried a modality like cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and left still feeling like there was deeper work to do, this may be why.
I provide Mental Health Counseling in these states:
Utah
Associate Clinical Mental Health Counselor (ACMHC)
License # 13269676-6009
Idaho
Mental Telehealth Counselor
License # 6161075
Washington
Licensed Mental Health Counselor (LMHC)
License # LH61457229
Soon, an interstate compact will make it possible for licensed counselors to see clients in even more states.
To find out more, visit the Counseling Compact site
I provide Art Therapy for clients in:
Washington state
California
Georgia
Utah
& now Idaho!
Psychedelic-Assisted Psychotherapy
I offer a therapeutic modality called Ketamine-Assisted Art Psychotherapy (KAP) as well as preparation & integration sessions for self-journeying with other compounds.
Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy (KAP) is a holistic modality in which ketamine is used as a complement to psychotherapy to help eligible patients experience more frequent breakthroughs and sustained improvement in symptoms. I take on the psychotherapy portion of the experience, while an outside medical team supports you on all medication aspects. This includes determining eligibility, developing a custom treatment plan, prescribing the medicine and monitoring outcomes. Below is more information about KAP to help you navigate if it may be a good fit for you.
I can only provide KAP in states where I provide mental health counseling. But I can provide preparation and integration sessions for people who are self-administering psychedelics or who get treatment in a clinic setting.
Just a few of the issues I work with people on:
Gender Exploration, Sexual Identity, + Relationship Structure
Are you, your child, or teen exploring your position on pronouns? Are you looking for help understanding your queer kid?
Are you in the process of coming out but worried what’s going to happen? Are you transgender but still have some question marks regarding affirming care? Are you questioning what you want your sexuality to mean to you at this stage in your life?
Are you and your partner interested in finding out more about what your options are in terms of relationship structures? These are terrific things to discover in therapy!
Spirituality & Religious Trauma
Many people have (or have left behind) belief systems & cultures that are oppressive to them. Exploring your unique cosmology in therapy is fascinating. For example, everyone would answer the question “why do bad things happen to good people?” differently. In fact, how would you answer this question? Even spouses or siblings have different beliefs about any given topic: money, politics, marriage. This relates to their choices in coping tools, their unique responses and troubling issues, and their general sense of ease and wellbeing in the world. If you have experienced trauma related to religion, it can feel alienating and destabilizing. There is a solution to religious/spiritual trauma. It begins in a safe relationship, such as the therapeutic one. Evicting religious guilt and shame from the body is possible through somatic trauma work.
Queer Couples Work
I love working with queer couples. Journey through communication skills, deepening honesty, regulating yourself, learning about each other’s past in a different way, creating deeper compassion and understanding, and maximizing love and pleasure in a consent culture. Debating whether to stay together? We can also do “discernment counseling” – making an informed choice and processing the emotions around change and/or compromise.
Parent Guilt
There’s a sense of shame that parents feel over what they’re not doing. It’s the hardest job in the world, which no one does “perfectly”, yet the ubiquitous they are constantly commenting on what you do. You might have a really conflicted relationship to parenthood.
Typically the Mother Wound affects people assigned [and socialized] female (AFABs) in a deep way. Parenting is fraught and complicated, and sometimes deeply painful to people who are struggling to raise kids in a new way. Especially if their parents are still in the picture. Old patterns get triggered and suddenly you find yourself saying something your own mother would say and you cringe. There are compassionate ways to meet this situation, I’d love to work with you on recovering from the shame that keeps you feeling bad.
Men’s Issues
I have a lot of experience with counseling men, including trans men. Sometimes there are different cultural expectations for, and hurdles to, therapy with guys. Trust that my approach can take the form of something that is caring but also practical. I don’t have any problem being direct, interrupting intellectualization, calling BS, or talking about hard topics. Concerns like sexual desire discrepancy, body image issues, baggage with your parents, or uncovering suppressed feelings are all in this wheelhouse. Each man is different, so your specific issues will be honored and my approach will be tailored to them.
Chronic Illness
I specialize in working with people with acquired chronic conditions. Often they discount that they even have a chronic illness such as PCOS, hyperthyroidism, GERD, arthritis, migraines, or TMJ.
I also have experience working with people with Lyme’s, Crohn’s, hypermobility Ehlers-Danlos (hEDS), POTS, Fibromyalgia, Lupus, RA, CSF leak, TBI, MS, and aging-related cognitive decline including dementia. If you don’t know what these acronyms mean, don’t sweat it. People with these diagnoses do!
There are unique challenges that come with the changes our body makes for us, and they’re sometimes in response to trauma. Medical trauma from procedures, or not being believed by doctors, can complicate & exacerbate our symptoms. We can feel left out of life or that our body has betrayed us.
There is a direct correlation to our mental wellbeing and physical health! Therapy has been shown to reduce symptoms of medical illnesses including pain, asthma, cancer, diabetes, and Parkinson’s disease- wow! What are you waiting for? Let’s get you some relief!
Holistic Stress Relief
There are many kinds of stress: post-traumatic stress, stress from your environment (traffic, long hours at work, pollution), eustress (even the good stuff can cause overwhelm, like buying a condo), and internal stress, which could be gut issues or self-criticism. Functional medicine seeks to find sustainable, real solutions. This isn’t about doubling down on controlling everything or spontaneously quitting your job without a plan. Working toward a more balanced life and taking care of yourself in a variety of different ways can help alleviate stress on your body and mind. This can even help you live longer! We all have stress, let’s dig in to yours.
Grief
We don’t grieve if we didn’t love. Loss hurts, and it has its own agenda and timeline. This can lead to frustration and sometimes the people in our lives just don’t get it. Grief affects all people, but very few people know how to be there for someone who is grieving. Traumatic loss such as death during the pandemic can cut to our very core. It makes us question our own mortality and the meaning of existence. Why is there so much pain? Will it ever go away? In therapy people talk and move and draw and cry it out of their body. If even that thought feels repulsive, it’s okay. We can start somewhere else.
Life Transitions
Breakups, marriages, job changes, moving, major outside stressors: these are all huge upheavals that may require additional support, time, patience, and understanding.
Other transitions in life include aging-related changes (like hair loss or sexual dysfunction), having babies, watching your kids turning into tweens, and also major epiphanies. These situations can rock your world. These are topics people often bring to therapy & coaching sessions. We can bring curiosity and ease to these very normal transitions. We can help ritualize the passing into new phases with sanctity and reverence instead of panic and despair.
Obsessive-Compulsive Symptoms
Most people (and lots of therapists) don’t really understand what OCD is. There’s also confusion between OCD and OCPD in everyday depictions and on TikTok University. If you’re struggling with intrusive thoughts, rumination, and feeling powerless over outcomes in your life, so sorry to tell you this, but you might have obsessive-compulsive symptoms. I use concepts from ERP and I-CBT, as well as acceptance and mindfulness with clients with these traits.
Sleep Problems
I love talking about sleep. Got insomnia? Let’s trouble shoot it! I’ve got a very long checklist of things to talk about to help get to sleep, stay asleep, and get more restful sleep. It is key to optimal organ function and mental clarity. Sleep impacts our mental and physical health dramatically. It’s related to a lot of other issues, including personality and genetics!
I also work in concert with holistic, natural, and functional medicine and have referrals to psychiatric medication providers who can help you get to sleep, stay asleep, sleep deeper, and without night terrors or nightmares.
Meeting the essential goal of getting good sleep can help you skyrocket forward in other work you’re doing in therapy. A rested nervous system has a better chance of being regulated.
Financial Counseling
Are you stumped about how to take the wheel of your life when it comes to making a real budget and then sticking to it?
Do you have familial “baggage” around planning, saving, and/or retirement? Do you need coaching about asking for adequate compensation in your job? Would you like to change jobs but don’t really know what your options are? Therapists help people with these topics and I have years of experience helping people get out of debt even when they’re not making much money. It is totally possible!
Antiracism for White Folks
Are you a white person with lots of questions about what to do about systemic injustice and institutionalized racism but are too afraid to ask? Have you tried asking a person of color and been told to “do your own work” but you don’t know what that entails? Therapy is a safe place to talk about all of the things that you don’t understand. Here you can begin to undo social conditioning, uncover and overcome guilt & shame, learn about racism and why oppression still exists, critical terminology, and wake up to your part in it.
Being part of a care team
It takes a village to take care of ourselves. Having people on your team is crucial to living a supported life. A doctor, sometimes a psychiatrist, specialists, a therapist, financial helpers, and other aides, such as nannies, mentors, supervisors, and coaches can help. If you don’t have these people in your life – if you experience shame, anxiety, or barriers around getting them – let’s talk it through. Having multi-faceted support can make a big difference in our sense of hope or feeling alone.
Adult Children of Personality Disordered Parents
You may not realize that the reason you feel so bad is because you grew up in an environment that just didn’t make sense or with someone who was deeply cruel to you. Many of my clients do not know that their parents were disordered prior to coming to counseling. If you suspect your parent may have had a PD, get in touch.
Childhood Sexual Abuse
It’s really hard to talk about, but a lot of people with current functional problems also experienced sexual abuse, molestation, incest, or rape as a child/adolescent. You might have never disclosed this to another person, you may have explored it in therapy a long time ago and feel like it’s resolved. But these betrayals are moral injuries. They affect how we relate to ourself, others, the world, and life. While it won’t be central to our work, perhaps trauma therapy would be a useful modality for today’s presenting problems.
So… What do I do next?
Book a 20-minute consultation call. Text me at (206) 316-8507
Consult calls are $25
If you prefer a free call, we can meet for 10 minutes. Please read what to ask in these short calls
in this article by TherapyDen creator, “TherapyJeff” (from TikTok)
Testimonials
“You were so thoughtful about working around my unusual obstacles and I really appreciate that. As a result, I am now a little braver than I was at the start, and that is kind of a huge big deal.”
— Group attendee
"Great group as always. I enjoyed the conversation and art exercise today. I like when there's some direction and it's something new like this breathing doodle. Jess is so validating and chronic illness-informed, which I very much appreciate. She holds space for everyone while giving gentle feedback or redirection if needed."
- Creativity and Chronic Illness Support Group Attendee
Get started with Pacific Art Therapy today.
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Times your weekly therapy cost by 48 (weeks I work in the year) and you will arrive at your annual estimated therapy cost.
