Founder | Clinician
I believe healing is not about becoming the person you were before something happened to you. It is about understanding what you’ve been through, reconnecting with your strengths, and finding a way forward that feels safe and meaningful.
I’m Monica Kristen, a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and founder of Monica Kristen Therapy. My practice is rooted in trauma-informed care, shaped by years of working alongside survivors of human trafficking, interpersonal violence, abuse, immigrants, and families navigating complex systems.
My clinical experience includes trauma therapy, crisis response, case management, immigration detention counseling, and mental health assessments. I am trained in EMDR and Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT) and use evidence-based approaches tailored to each person’s needs. Together, we may work on processing difficult experiences, building emotional regulation and coping skills, navigating anxiety or overwhelm, or simply creating space to understand what you need and where you want to go next.
I believe strongly in empowerment and choice. You are the expert on your own life. My role is to walk alongside you, offer guidance and support, and help you develop the tools and understanding to move forward in a way that feels right for you.
I am especially passionate about working with people whose experiences intersect with trauma, immigration, violence, exploitation, and complicated systems. At the same time, you do not have to have experienced a major trauma to deserve support. Therapy can be a place to work through anxiety, life transitions, relationships, grief, uncertainty, or simply the feeling that something needs to change.
You don’t have to figure everything out before you begin. You can start exactly where you are.
My hope is that therapy becomes a place where you feel heard without judgment, supported without pressure, and empowered to move forward in a way that is your own.
Healing doesn’t mean forgetting what happened.
It means having more choice in how you move forward.
Specializing in trauma recovery for sexual abuse, human trafficking, domestic violence, and immigration-related trauma.
Clinician
Jessica Shaw is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker who specializes in supporting individuals through pregnancy, postpartum, and the many emotional transitions that accompany becoming a parent. Her areas of focus include perinatal mood and anxiety disorders, postpartum depression, birth trauma, pregnancy and birth loss, grief, and adjustment to parenthood.
With a background that bridges both clinical social work and birth support, Jessica brings a unique understanding of the perinatal experience. Before becoming a therapist, she worked for a decade as a certified birth and postpartum doula, providing families with physical, emotional, and informational support throughout pregnancy, childbirth, and the early postpartum period. This experience continues to inform her therapeutic approach and gives her a deep appreciation for the complexities of birth, postpartum recovery, infant feeding, early parenthood, and the often-unspoken emotional challenges that can arise during this transformative time.
In her work as a hospital perinatal social worker, Jessica provided clinical care to patients throughout pregnancy and postpartum, including those experiencing high-risk pregnancies, pregnancy complications, fetal diagnoses, traumatic birth experiences, perinatal mood disorders, and pregnancy loss. She also facilitated new mother support groups and offered grief and bereavement counseling.
Jessica takes a warm, compassionate, and trauma-informed approach to therapy. She draws from CBT, ACT, DBT, and supportive therapy, while recognizing that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to healing. She works collaboratively with clients to create a space where difficult experiences can be explored honestly and without judgment.
Becoming a parent can be joyful, overwhelming, isolating, complicated, and sometimes deeply painful—all at the same time. Jessica believes you do not have to navigate that experience alone. Whether you are struggling to adjust to life after having a baby, processing a birth that did not go as expected, experiencing postpartum depression or anxiety, or grieving a pregnancy or birth loss, she is honored to walk alongside you.
Specializing in: birth trauma, postpartum mood disorders, pregnancy and birth loss, grief, and adjustment to parenthood.
Are you a licensed clinician interested in clinical supervision, or joining our team?
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