Therapy for Athletes

The Athlete Everyone Sees Is Only Part of the Story.

You train, compete, get evaluated, make mistakes, deal with expectations, and keep trying to get better. But what happens when the pressure follows you home, or what’s happening outside of sport starts following you into competition?

Maybe that one mistake changes the rest of your game. You lose your temper after a bad call. You shut down when a coach gets on you. You play tight because you’re afraid of messing up. Or you can’t stop thinking about what happened long after the game is over. And sometimes, you’re performing just fine but struggling somewhere else entirely. Sometimes sport is the problem. Sometimes it’s where the problem shows up. And sometimes it has very little to do with why you’re coming to therapy.

I’ve experienced these struggles myself as an athlete, and I wish I had someone to help me through it. That was my motivation for becoming a therapist specifically for athletes. I want athletes to have a place to work through what’s happening both in and outside of sport—with someone who understands the environment they compete in.

In-person therapy for athletes in Austin, Texas | Online throughout Texas

You’re More Than Your Performance.

Being an athlete can become a big part of how you see yourself. You may find yourself overwhelmed with trying to perform while also pleasing your teammates and coaches. But you’re also dealing with everything outside of sport: relationships, family, identity, school, confidence, anxiety, injury, expectations, self-worth, and experiences that may have nothing to do with athletics.

Sometimes what you carry with you shows up in how you compete. Other times, it shows up somewhere completely different.

Therapy gives us a place to look at the whole picture. We don’t assume there’s a deeper reason for everything, and we don’t reduce everything to performance. We get curious about what’s happening, recognize patterns, and work with what actually needs attention. You’re an athlete. You’re also more than your performance.

Therapy That Goes Beyond Talking About It.

You might already know you’re putting too much pressure on yourself. You might know you need to manage your anger, calm your nerves, or stop overthinking. Knowing that doesn’t necessarily change what happens in the moment.

I primarily use Emotional Transformation Therapy (ETT®), an experiential approach that allows us to work with emotional and physiological responses as they happen, rather than only talking about them afterward.

You don’t have to walk into therapy knowing exactly why you feel or respond the way you do. We can investigate, work with what comes up, and process experiences or patterns that may be affecting how you feel, respond, relate, and perform. And while that work may change how you show up in your sport, the goal is bigger than performance. The athlete is where we may start. You are who we’re actually working with.