Jessica Wakefield, MA, LPA

Psychotherapist
Integrative Health Coach
Health Education Specialist

Prior to joining Duke Integrative Medicine in 2002, Wakefield was a lifestyle maintenance counselor with the Duke Diet and Fitness Center and an assistant research coordinator for the Duke Cancer Control Research Program.

Wakefield received her master's degree in health psychology from Appalachian State University in 2001 and completed her clinical internship at the Duke Diet and Fitness Center and the Duke Center for Living that same year. From 2004 to present, Wakefield has sought additional training in life coaching through the Coaches Training Institute and has learned coaching techniques to help clients find life fulfillment, balance, and process. Wakefield is currently a licensed psychological assistant (master's level psychologist) in North Carolina and a certified QuitSmart Smoking Cessation instructor.

Wakefield's clinical and coaching practices have focused on helping individuals to obtain optimal health and well-being. She has helped clients lose weight, stop smoking, reduce stress, become physically active, better cope with anxiety, depression, and life adjustments, and improve overall health and quality of life. In her work with clients, Wakefield uses the mind-body approaches of mindfulness meditation and relaxation training (i.e. breath work, progressive muscle relaxation, and imagery) and cognitive-behavioral, solution-focused, person-centered, and interpersonal therapies and coaching techniques.

Wakefield's research has also focused on helping individuals to make healthy lifestyle changes. During her time at Duke Integrative Medicine, she has been a research therapist on an NIH-funded study exploring the utilization of meditation and mindfulness-based treatments for binge-eating disorder; a health coach for the CMS-funded grant using a Strategic Health Planning model to reduce the 10-year risk of cardiovascular disease; and as research coordinator for the GlaxoSmithKline-funded study looking at diabetics' and asthmatics' barriers to medication adherence.