A smiling woman with blonde, curly hair wearing glasses and a white button-up shirt standing on a balcony with city buildings and greenery in the background.

Jess Benge, MA, MS, MFT

Chicago Relationship & Sex Therapist | Couples Therapy, Infidelity & Complex Trauma

Who I am

I'm a romantic nihilist.

I don't believe the universe owes us a purpose for being alive. I think we decide what makes our life worth living.

For me, it’s the people I love and the relationships I’ve chosen along the way.

After all, life doesn’t have to mean anything in order for love to mean everything.

But I don’t assume that what gives my life meaning should give yours meaning, too.

As a Chicago-based relationship & sex therapist, writer, and researcher, I've devoted much of my professional life to understanding the strange and often contradictory ways human beings seek love, avoid pain, and make sense of themselves.

Why do some of us crave intimacy and then panic when someone gets too close?

Why can we understand our behavior perfectly and still find ourselves making the exact same mistake we did last week?

These questions brought me to this work. They also keep me writing.

How I Work

I approach therapy with the curiosity of a researcher, the perspective of a systemic therapist, and I have a fairly relentless interest in neuroscience.

I've come to appreciate that understanding someone requires us to loosen our grip on what we think we know about them.

My clinical work draws from Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT), Internal Family Systems (IFS), Brainspotting, and attachment theory.

I'm not interested in telling people what a meaningful life or healthy relationship should look like. I'm more interested in helping people understand what matters to them, why it matters to them, and whether the lives they're living reflect their values.

I don't believe there's one right way to live. But I do believe there’s a difference between living by choice and living by habit.

Read About My Credentials Here

Read More About My Approach to Therapy

For more than a decade I’ve had the privilege of witnessing people’s lives up close—their marriages and affairs, successes and mistakes, growth, and the places they get stuck.

My work as a therapist and as a writer begin the same way, with curiosity.

Why are you here? Who are you now? Who are you trying to become? And what do you hope will feel different when you’re done?

I have two master’s degrees, Level 2 training in Internal Family Systems, and certification in Brainspotting.

My clinical work focuses on relationships, particularly infidelity and broken trust, mismatched desire, sexual dysfunction, out-of-control sexual behavior, modern dating, and complex trauma that often shows up in the body before we have words for it.

As a kid, I started reading writers who made me feel things long before I was familiar with emotions.

Jack Kerouac, Cormac McCarthy, Toni Morrison—they showed me that language could do more than explain something. It could make you experience it.

Sometimes I write for the release of getting a thought out of my head. Other times, I write because I’ve found a question I can’t leave alone.

But perhaps the simplest reason I write is because a long time ago, I was a little girl who dreamed of becoming a published author. Unfortunately for that part of me, I grew up and became many other things first. Love & Lakeshore is her second chance.

Different Lenses. same curiosity.

Therapeutic Specialties

Work With Me

I'm curious, direct, and comfortable with the complexities of being human. I take my work seriously, but I believe there's room for humor, honesty, and the occasional swear word.

I've learned that people rarely need another person telling them who they are. More often, they need the space and courage to discover that for themselves.

I won't rush to conclusions about you, nor will I ask you to avoid difficult truths. We'll make room for compassion and accountability, for what you understand about yourself and what you have yet to discover.

I believe being understood matters. But what we do with that understanding matters more. Read More