教育赋予力量

For Jessica Pladsen 08届，12届硕士，24届博士, 弹性, 奉献, and an unwavering commitment to her Marriage and 家庭治疗 journey opened many doors for her career.

Jessica always found 心理学 to be the frontier for learning in her life and enjoyed the depth of understanding and innovation that followed.

Although she has studied both top-down and bottom-up processing as integration to create wholeness in therapy, she especially liked studying the top-down process of the brain (perception based upon prior experiences and knowledge), 认知, 情感, 知道我们的身体如何容纳这些碎片, 然后, 如何以治疗的方式处理这些因素. This allows for the integration of these systems and processes to address the mind and body as a whole to support healing.

“我发现我们作为人类是了不起的. How could you not be in awe while sitting with someone resilient and trying to be in a healing space with them, and why wouldn’t you want to dedicate your life to that?"
-Jessica Pladsen, 08级，12级硕士，24级硕士

杰西卡说:“我觉得我们是了不起的人。. “How could you not be in awe while sitting with someone resilient and trying to be in a healing space with them, and why wouldn’t you want to dedicate your life to that? There is always more to learn, so you could never get tired in this field.”

当我看着她的时候 婚姻及家庭治疗文学硕士 学历和本科专业 心理学 辅修 社会学, Mount Mercy大学 felt like the ideal place for her to create connections and learn without distractions.

“Mount Mercy has allowed classes to be accessible while also allowing me to provide for my family,杰西卡说. “老师和教授给了我最大的帮助. Mount Mercy has connected me with so many wonderful people and has helped me feel supported in this community, 所以我非常感激.”

虽然希尔离杰西卡家有一个小时的车程, it was a no-brainer for her to choose to attend Mount Mercy for her 婚姻与家庭治疗博士 (博士-硕士)，因为她和教授们关系密切, 对地点的适应程度, 以及职业成长的机会.

“因为我开始了自己的诊所, the growth process of my PhD morphed into something different,杰西卡解释道. “The PhD-MFT has become more substantiating academic achievement. It has also opened doors and aligned with my pursuit of professorship, which is needed to access higher learning and hopefully what will be legacy pieces.”

"The PhD-MFT has also opened doors and aligned with my pursuit of professorship, which is needed to access higher learning and hopefully what will be legacy pieces."
-Jessica Pladsen, 08级，12级硕士，24级硕士

杰西卡是棱镜治疗集团的创始人, which she named after the object that helps you see things you wouldn’t otherwise be able to see, 比如获取你身边的资源. Because Jessica sees therapy as a tool like a prism, she named her business after it.

Her business provides a lot of autonomy for the therapists who work there and the ability to get input regardless of hierarchical positions. Having the opportunity to create this kind of atmosphere was a big push for Jessica to start her own business.

“作为商界女性, 我想我们遇到了很多麻烦, like taking care of ourselves but working hard and still being available, so I wanted to create a business with a different culture where those binds weren’t a part of it,杰西卡说. “Prism治疗小组是一个非常协作的空间, 因此，它不仅成为客户的治疗空间, 同时也是这里工作人员的疗伤空间.”

杰西卡不仅是创始人, 她是aamft批准的主管, managing 14 therapists and is adding medication management to the practice. She is also a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and a Registered Play Therapist Supervisor, 每周要处理20到30个客户的案子.

作为治疗师的职责之一, 老板, 和主管, 她处理账单, 接待员的工作, 还有证书, while also finding time to serve as a general board member on the Iowa Play Therapy Board and be an Adjunct Professor in the MFT program at Mount Mercy.

Jessica finds the academic aspect of being a professor to be energizing, 她喜欢在系统层面上产生影响. She also enjoys the idea of affecting her students the same way that her professors shaped her clinical approach and continue to impact her interactions with clients today.

“我的学生们都很聪明, and it has been such an honor to work with them and share a space with them,”她说。. “It was like I didn’t even know what I was missing until I had it. Being able to plant these little seeds and watch them grow as people and see their experience and learning fall into place has been such a beautiful space to occupy. 我感到很荣幸.”

多亏了杰西卡最好的朋友兼前任教授， 希瑟Morgan-Sowada, she has learned how to balance her busy life with grace and maintain the separation between her multiple roles of being a student and a faculty member.

“My dearest friend and professor 希瑟Morgan-Sowada has helped me navigate different dual relationship roles between us as an ethical aspect in our profession, 她做得很周到,杰西卡说.

While wearing many hats at her jobs and in the community, Jessica has been working on qualitative research for her dissertation for the PhD-MFT program. Because there isn’t a ton of research on MFTs and their designation style of what they do and how they do it, Jessica chose to focus her research on whether or not the MFT approach to therapy is that different than other designations like mental health counselors or social workers focusing on impact around borderline personality disorder.

整体, 杰西卡说人们, 的关系, 人脉是让她印象最深刻的东西, and she believes the PhD-MFT program at Mount Mercy has been well worth her time and drive.

“The PhD-MFT program has been one of the most challenging things that I’ve ever come up against,”她说。. “但这也是最有成就感的事情之一.”