Jessica Grabowski

Anxiety, OCD, Relationships & Women’s Midlife Therapy

Hi, I’m Jessica. Have you ever looked around at your life and thought, “I should be okay—so why doesn’t it feel that way?”

Maybe anxiety has become the soundtrack playing in the background of your life. You may feel stuck in depression, overwhelmed by intrusive thoughts, disconnected in your relationships, or uncertain about a transition you never expected. Perhaps you simply know something is no longer working, but you cannot quite explain why.

Whatever brought you here, I’m glad you found your way.

I provide compassionate therapy for adolescents, adults, and couples navigating anxiety, depression, OCD, relationship challenges, identity changes, and major life transitions. I believe therapy is most meaningful when it feels like a genuine conversation—not a cold or clinical experience.

In our work together, you can set down the pressure to have everything figured out. You do not have to edit your thoughts, hide your emotions, or worry about saying the “right” thing. Together, we will explore your experiences, understand the patterns keeping you stuck, and develop healthier responses that align with the life you want to live.

There is room in therapy for insight, difficult conversations, personal growth, and laughter—because being human is beautifully messy.

Who I Work With

I support adolescents, adults, and couples experiencing:

• Anxiety, overthinking, and chronic stress

• Depression and loss of motivation

• Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)

• Intrusive thoughts and difficulty tolerating uncertainty

• Trauma and difficult life experiences

• Women’s midlife transitions

• Relationship and communication challenges

• Couples counseling

• Family estrangement

• Parenting challenges

• Self-esteem and self-worth concerns

• Boundaries and people-pleasing

• Perfectionism

• Grief and loss

• Identity development and life transitions

• Emotional regulation challenges

• Adjustment following medically assisted weight loss

• Personal growth and questions of meaning or purpose
  

My Therapeutic Approach

My approach is collaborative, individualized, and grounded primarily in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). I also integrate Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), mindfulness, psychodynamic principles, Existential Therapy, Narrative Therapy, and strengths-based interventions.

Rather than focusing only on eliminating uncomfortable thoughts or emotions, we work toward greater psychological flexibility. This means learning to make room for difficult internal experiences while choosing actions guided by your values—not by fear, avoidance, perfectionism, or old patterns.

I also make space for life’s bigger questions about identity, meaning, purpose, and choice—the occasional “Who am I, what am I doing, and how did I get here?” moments that are part of being human.

Together, we will explore how your experiences have shaped the stories you carry and decide which stories still deserve a place in the life you are building.

Therapy for Anxiety and Depression

Anxiety can convince you that certainty is only one more thought away, keeping you trapped in overthinking, self-doubt, perfectionism, and endless “what ifs.” Depression can pull you in the opposite direction, disconnecting you from the people, activities, and experiences that give your life meaning.

Therapy can help you change your relationship with difficult thoughts and emotions, reconnect with your strengths and values, and begin taking meaningful steps forward—even when anxiety comes along for the ride or motivation is slow to arrive.

The goal is not to create a life without uncomfortable emotions. It is to create a life in which those emotions no longer make all your decisions.

OCD Therapy and ERP

OCD can pull both the person experiencing it and the people who love them into a painful cycle of intrusive thoughts, uncertainty, compulsions, reassurance, and avoidance.

I am passionate about supporting individuals with OCD while also helping parents, partners, and family members understand how to provide support without unintentionally reinforcing the disorder.

My approach integrates Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) with Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. This work helps clients:

• Change their relationship with intrusive thoughts

• Increase their ability to tolerate uncertainty

• Reduce compulsions, avoidance, and reassurance-seeking

• Recognize patterns that keep the OCD cycle going

• Reconnect with relationships, activities, and personal values
  

I also help loved ones recognize reassurance, accommodation, and other responses that can quietly become part of the OCD cycle.

The goal is not perfect certainty or a mind completely free of intrusive thoughts. It is to stop organizing your life around OCD and make more room for freedom, connection, and what matters most.

Relationship and Couples Counseling

Our relationships often reflect the ways we have learned to protect ourselves.

Whether you are navigating conflict, trust concerns, communication problems, emotional disconnection, estrangement, or difficulty setting boundaries, we will explore the patterns beneath those struggles with curiosity rather than criticism.

Together, we can strengthen emotional awareness and develop healthier, more intentional ways of connecting with others—and with yourself.

Identity Development and Life Transitions

Major life changes can affect far more than your daily routine. They may shift your sense of identity, your relationships, your body image, your priorities, and the roles you occupy.

I am deeply passionate about helping clients navigate identity development and integration during meaningful transitions, including midlife and life following significant weight loss.

Together, we will explore how your self-concept has changed, make sense of roles or identities you may have outgrown, and help you develop a more integrated and authentic understanding of who you are now.

Therapy for Women Navigating Midlife

Midlife is not simply another birthday. Sometimes it feels like life’s biggest plot twist.

Children become more independent—or begin needing you in entirely new ways. Parents may start relying on you. Careers, relationships, bodies, and priorities change. Caregiving, grief, divorce, menopause, or years spent placing everyone else’s needs first can leave you wondering:

“Who am I now?”

“What do I want this next chapter to look like?”

Midlife offers an opportunity to shift the question from “What does everyone else need from me?” to “What matters to me now?”

Together, we can explore the roles and expectations that have shaped you, reconnect with your identity and values, strengthen your boundaries, and create a next chapter that feels intentional and authentically yours.

Adjustment Following Medically Assisted Weight Loss

Significant weight loss and other physical changes can bring unexpected emotional and relational challenges. Even positive changes can raise questions about confidence, body image, relationships, identity, purpose, aging, and belonging.

You may feel disconnected when your body or external life has changed more quickly than your internal sense of self.

Using an integrative approach grounded in ACT, Narrative Therapy, and mindfulness, I help clients:

• Adjust to body-image and self-concept changes

• Explore shifts in relationships and social experiences

• Reconnect with their personal values

• Process identities or roles they may have outgrown

• Develop greater self-compassion

• Build a more authentic sense of who they are now
  

Together, we will create space for you to move forward with greater clarity, confidence, and self-understanding.

My Philosophy

I do not believe therapy is about fixing people. I believe it is about helping people understand themselves with greater compassion.

Life will always contain uncertainty, change, loss, and experiences we did not choose. We may not control everything that appears in our lives—or even in our minds—but we can learn to choose how we respond.

My role is not to tell you who to become. It is to walk alongside you as you develop the awareness, flexibility, and courage to move toward the person and life that matter to you.

Meaningful change does not come from becoming someone else. It comes from learning to become more fully yourself.

Experience and Education

Before becoming a therapist, I spent more than 25 years working in the nonprofit sector, supporting children, families, and communities through advocacy, leadership, and program development.

That experience continues to shape my therapeutic work and has given me a deep appreciation for resilience, authentic connection, and the importance of meeting people where they are.

I earned:

• A Bachelor of Science in Psychology from Montclair State University

• A Master of Arts in Management from New York University

• A Master of Science in Clinical Mental Health Counseling from Walden University
  

I currently practice under clinical supervision while pursuing full licensure as a Professional Counselor in Georgia.

My professional memberships include:

• American Counseling Association (ACA)

• Licensed Professional Counselors Association of Georgia (LPCA-GA)

• NAMI Georgia
  

Whether you are seeking therapy for yourself, your adolescent, your relationship, or a new chapter in your life, I would be honored to walk alongside you.

Helping you make room for life’s challenges while making space for what matters most.