About me

Jessica Rydgren, portrait

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Doing everything right isn't enough to feel good.
I know, because I did it myself for years.

Even as a child I was an expressive, creative soul, but I learned early to make myself smaller to fit in. That habit stayed with me for a long time, even into my working life.

My path to the psychologist role went through studies in both Leeds and Gothenburg. As a newly graduated psychologist, I entered healthcare with all the structure and systems we have, and I learned an enormous amount. But I didn't thrive. The more rooms I sat in, the clearer it became to me that what actually made a difference rarely fit within the framework of the system. It was about something outside manuals, about real contact, feelings, the body, what existed beyond words.

That friction, between what I was trained to do and what I deeply knew helped the most, eventually became my own way back to myself. I started truly listening inward, what did I myself need to feel well, in my body, in nature, in creating, and let the answer shape how I work today.

Today I'm building my own practice, where I get to combine individual work with groups, workshops, and supervision. I'm developing courses and concepts where both play and depth get to have a place. I live close to the nature I've always been drawn to, climb, walk in the forest, work with clay, and let movement and meaningful connection take place in everyday life.

Today I meet my clients from this place. Not as someone who's here to give you all the answers, but as someone who knows what it feels like to get lost and find her way back home to herself, and who is passionate about walking that path together with others.

My way of working

Safety is the foundation of everything I do. Change becomes possible when the nervous system feels safe enough, so I always work at the pace of the body, with a focus on regulation, stabilization, and building the capacity to meet what's difficult without becoming overwhelmed.

I work exploratively and at depth, always at your pace and with respect for your boundaries. In the relationship, I bring presence, structure, and reflection. I see myself as a fellow traveler:
You already carry what's needed for change, and my work is to help you connect with it.

My approach is holistic and integrative, grounded in psychodynamic short-term therapy, mainly AEDP and ISTDP, together with parts work based in IFS and elements of ACT and CFT. I adapt the methods to you, with a focus on underlying patterns rather than isolated symptoms.

I have particular experience with life crises, stress, grief, burnout, anxiety, low mood, identity, LGBTQIA+ experience, and non-monogamous relationship structures, as well as supporting the integration of non-ordinary states of consciousness, such as psychedelic experiences, meditation, and spiritual experiences, always with a focus on safety and long-term stability.

My vision

Finding a Home Within Yourself

How do we create a society where people don't have to choose between belonging and living in contact with themselves?

How do we help people live more in contact with themselves, while also changing the structures that make it so difficult? I believe both perspectives are needed. People need to take responsibility for their own healing, while we also need to build societies, workplaces, and healthcare systems that make it easier to live healthy lives. We can't understand people's suffering without also understanding the environment they live in.

Within psychology, it's easy to end up with an overly individualistic perspective. And if we're also moving in self-development circles with an ideal of being able to handle anything on the outside without it touching us on the inside, it's easy to start meeting ourselves with self-criticism and shame when we're not doing well.

At the same time, we risk forgetting how much our life circumstances actually shape us. Sometimes the path to feeling better isn't just about inner change, but just as much about changing the outer, our relationships, our work environment, our living conditions, or the systems we're part of. Sometimes the most healing change isn't an inner one, but an outer one. And most often, we need both.

A Life in Contact

My vision is to contribute to a society where people live more in contact, with themselves, with others, and with nature. By helping people shed the obstacles that exist both within us and in society, I want to make a deeper contact possible.

What does it mean to live in contact? What happens when you feel at home in yourself? Maybe feelings can storm without you losing your footing. Maybe you can meet another person with full presence, without simultaneously planning what to say next. Maybe the body feels a little softer. There's more playfulness. More freedom. Less struggle. I believe humans are meant to live in deep contact.

What I'm Curious About

I'm curious about which environments help us come more into contact, with ourselves, with each other, and with nature. And which environments, often quite unconsciously, make that contact harder.

What happens to our capacity to feel contact as the pace keeps increasing? We're fed more information than any generation before us. Algorithms compete for our attention. Many of us have learned that our worth is tied to performance, productivity, or how others perceive us. At the same time, more and more people report feeling lonely, stressed, or disconnected, despite never having been more connected.

Sustainability, For People, Society, and Nature

I want to contribute to a more sustainable society. Where sustainability isn't just about reduced emissions in nature, but also about people. Where we build lives, relationships, workplaces, and healthcare systems that make it possible to feel well without having to compromise on who we are. I believe mental health needs to be understood from a more holistic perspective, where the individual and the environment work together, and where differences can become assets rather than problems to be fixed.

How I Want to Contribute

I want to guide people to shed what keeps them from living authentically, to help them come home to themselves, and to develop a deeper contact with their own inner strength. I want to create spaces where people can meet more authentically, with healing and with power. I want to gather people from different professions around a more holistic view of health, and together explore how we can create more sustainable ways to live, work, and take care of each other.

If these questions stir something in you, I hope you'll want to be part of the conversation, maybe through therapy, maybe through the Levande Hälsa network, maybe through workshops or courses. Because I don't believe any of us creates this change alone. I believe we do it together.

Curious to work together?

Book a time here