My name is Jessica Andexer. I offer neuroscience informed, thoughtful, accessible and creative spaces – for individuals, in the form of one to one counselling, offerings specifically to support neurodivergent people and their work spaces. As well as consultation and supervision spaces for professionals. I also create bespoke trainings and workshops for organisations and groups.
My journey
I trained as a psychodynamic counsellor in 2001, later as an integrative psychotherapist, I wanted to better understand humans, including myself and the all ways we suffer, behave and live. This led to many years working in the field of mental health, including many trauma services, universities, the NHS and in private practice.
My training, my own personal journey and my work with clients led me to develop a real passion for holistic, approaches to well-being. whilst I still see the place of talking therapy, as a reflective, exploratory and relational space to understand oneself, and to make some change, my journey has taken me in slightly different direction.
I began noticing both in my work and personal development the places where talking therapy didn’t seem to reach, I started to feel that we are more than just our narratives. We are bodies, that breathe, move and are part of the natural world we live in. My own path has brought me to a place of coming home. Home to the whole of who I am, to bear in mind all that is occurring in this moment and to connect fully and lovingly with it all.
I became deeply interested in the new neuroscience movement in mental health, in new ways to understand how our experiences live in our bodies. I also began to explore my relationship with the natural world and how developing and exploring this could aid our own as well the planets mutual well-being.
I saw in both myself and many of my clients, how the pain, trauma or stress we live through stays stuck in our brains and bodies as habitual patterns, repeating on a loop, this loop seeming to play out not just in the nervous system, but in our thoughts, beliefs, actions and feelings. I also began to explore my own neurodivergence, the ways my brain and nervous system work in ways that are atypical.
Training in the therapeutic application of somatic, mindfulness and neuroscience informed concepts and practices led me to begin to live and work far more holistically.
My own journey has enabled me to create the work I now do, as well as live a more gently responsive, accepting and compassionate life.
Being multiply neurodivergent and having chronic health issues has led me to more learning, to seek out new teachers and explore new ideas. I have found a way to allow aspects of Buddhism, biophillia and mindful living into my journey and to merge these with the neuroscience and psychotherapy ideas that have formed major parts of my understanding and work. I am keen to move away from the pathologising view of neurodivergence, into a more science based and responsive to individual needs, based approach.
My journey has allowed me to come to create somatic and mindful wellbeing practices that are an intrinsic parts of my life. These have enabled me to learn to live with more ease, kindness and less reactivity. My forays into Buddhist concepts and meditation have helped me to begin to understand, that while suffering is normal part of human life, there are ways to suffer with greater ease and find joy and peace in our day to day lives. I am keen to share my learning with others.
I hope in my work to offer my years of experience as a therapist, my additional training, my own personal take aways and learnings from journeying into my own body-brain-environment connections, as well as my own experiences living as a neurodivergent and chronically ill person. I look forward to sharing this knowledge and these tools with you soon.
I see that well-being offerings can at times be quite exclusive, not places that always give thought to difference, disability or financial constraints. I hope to offer accessible, affordable and inclusive spaces and learning wherever I am able. I am particularly keen to create spaces that feel more accessible to those who identify as neurodivergent, disabled, chronically ill and those who may felt excluded from traditional meditation and wellbeing spaces.
I am always open to feedback, comments, questions and ideas for collaboration!
Qualifications
I am fully qualified in: Psychodynamic Psychotherapeutic Counselling, Integrative Psychotherapy, Teaching Meditation, Energy Psychotherapy, Nature based mindfulness, Master Practitioner in trauma work, Trauma Sensitive Mindfulness, Yoga theory and practice, Somatic Movement, Breathwork for anxiety, as well as Clinical Supervision.
I am currently undertaking training in NeuroAffective Touch®
I have extensive and on-going training and CPD in wide ranging areas such as:
Wide variety of breathwork techniques and neurobiology of breathing. Many years of additional training and experience in the area of – Neurobiology of trauma, stress and anxiety, Neurodivergence and sensory processing differences. Polyvagal theory and its applications, Qi Gong, Group work. Trauma Sensitive Mindfulness Teacher Training. Gender and LGBT+, Buddhist Psychology and Buddhist Meditation and Dharma, Thich Nhat Hanh’s Five Mindfulness Trainings, Meditation and Mindfulness retreats, Mental health issues, Mindful Movement, Yoga theory, Yin Yoga, Mindful Movement, Yogic and Neuroscience Informed breathing techniques, Developing and Delivering Training, Relationship styles and attachment theory+
Some people I have (some are on-going) trained with and learnt from Bessel Van Der Kolk, Melina Bondy, Dan Siegel, Deb Dana, David Trelevan, Ben Woolf, Diana Barnett, Ian Banyard, Brighitta Moser-Clark, Lama Rod Owens, Oren Jay Sofer, Licia Sky, Stephen Porges, Peter Levine, Dr.Nick Walker
Professional Membership Bodies: