Counseling for College Students
You're not new to pressure. You've been navigating it your whole life — the workload, the expectations, the performance. You've gotten good at managing it. Most of the time, nobody around you would even know.
But there's a version of you that only you have access to.
The one who replays the “stupid answer” you gave in class, who can't turn off the spiraling panic and doubt at 2AM, who works twice as hard as anyone else (mostly because you're afraid of what happens if you stop).
The one who arrived on campus and quietly wondered: Does everyone else belong here more than I do?
That question is more common than you think. And it's worth taking seriously.
For a lot of college students, anxiety isn't about any single thing. It's the accumulation — the pressure to perform academically, to figure out who you are and what you want, to stay connected to the people you love, and to make it all look manageable. Your nervous system wasn't built to carry that indefinitely without somewhere to put it down.
Counseling can be that somewhere.
You got here. You worked for it.
So why does it feel like you're one bad grade away from it all falling apart?
My Counseling Approach
A lot of high-achieving people come into therapy a little skeptical. You’re used to solving your own problems. You've read the books, downloaded the apps, and tried the breathing exercises. Why do you need someone else’ opinion?
That skepticism makes complete sense, and it's actually a good sign! It means you think carefully. So let me be direct about what we'd actually do together.
First, we’ll work with your nervous system, not just your thoughts. Anxiety lives in the body long before it becomes a story in your head — a racing heart, a tight chest, the hypervigilance that kicks in before a presentation. You’d be surprised how many high-functioning people are completely unaware of these sensations. If you’re missing them, you’re missing valuable data.
Learning to recognize and work with those signals, rather than white-knuckling through them, changes things in a way that insight alone usually doesn't.
From there, we'd look at the stories underneath the anxiety.
Not just "I'm stressed about my thesis", but the older, quieter beliefs that give the stress its weight.
Things like:
My worth depends on my GPA.
If I ask for help, it will signal that I’m not actually smart enough.
Everything is a test, and I have to earn my place.
Those beliefs didn't come from nowhere. And once you can see them clearly, you get to decide if they're still working for you.
This isn't about dismantling your ambition. It's about building a relationship with yourself that can hold your ambition without being swallowed by it.
College Student Counseling FAQs
These questions are split between Parent/Caregiver FAQs & Student FAQs. Sometimes students reach out seeking counseling for themselves, and sometimes parents/caregivers reach on on their student’s behalf.
PARENT/CAREGIVER FAQS
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Yes, and you're not alone in doing so! Parents often reach out first, especially when their student is resistant or doesn't fully recognize how much they're struggling.
I'm happy to answer your questions, help you think through how to approach the conversation with your student and talk through what counseling at this age actually looks like.
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Campus counseling centers are a wonderful resource and often a great place to start — I'd genuinely encourage your student to check about services there first! They're staffed by skilled clinicians, they understand the college environment, and they're typically low or no cost.
Where private practice tends to differ is in availability and continuity. Campus centers are in high demand, and waitlists can make it hard to get consistent, ongoing care — especially during high-stress times of the semester when students need support most. In a private practice, your student can typically get started sooner, meet consistently without session limits, and work with the same therapist throughout their college years and beyond. For students doing deeper work around anxiety, that continuity tends to matter.
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Yes — I offer appointments across several days during regular business hours (9–5), and I'm happy to work with your student to find a time that fits their schedule. If you're not sure what's currently available, the best first step is to reach out for a free consultation and we can go from there.
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Both. In-person sessions are available at my office on Main Street in Davidson, NC, right across from Davidson College.
Virtual sessions are available for clients located anywhere in North Carolina.
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If your student is staying in North Carolina over the summer, yes — we can continue meeting virtually without any interruption.
If they're heading to another state, I'm only licensed to practice in North Carolina, so we'd need to pause sessions until they return. We'd plan for that transition together so it doesn't feel abrupt.
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My practice is private pay, which means I don't bill insurance companies directly. That said, the cost of counseling may be more manageable than you'd expect.
Many families are able to use out-of-network benefits, HSA or FSA funds, or a platform I partner with called Thrizer to significantly offset the cost — sometimes bringing sessions closer to what a typical co-pay would be.
Thrizer lets you check your out-of-network benefits before starting and handles the superbill submission and insurance communication on your behalf so you're not doing that legwork yourself.
Every insurance plan is different, but many families are surprised to find they have more usable benefits than they realized.
For full details on session fees and payment options, including how Thrizer works, visit my fees page.
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Because I can't share what happens in sessions, you won't get a progress report from me. What I can tell you is that real engagement in therapy rarely looks dramatic. It usually shows up quietly over time: a little more steadiness, a little more willingness to talk about hard things, slightly less reactivity in moments of stress.
If your student is showing up consistently and starting to reflect on their experience even a little, something is almost certainly happening — even if they can't fully articulate it yet. Trust the process, and trust that choosing to come at all is itself a meaningful step.
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This is a common parent question!
Resistance is normal, especially for students who are used to handling things on their own. A few things tend to help: keeping the conversation low-pressure, focusing on supporting their wellbeing rather than pushing therapy to “fix” something, and giving them some agency in the process.
Sometimes just knowing the option is there — without it being pushed — is enough for a student to come around on their own timeline.
Feel free to reach out; I'm happy to help you think through the conversation!
Have a question I didn’t address here? Email me!
STUDENT FAQS
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You don't have to be in crisis to benefit from counseling. If anxiety is regularly getting in the way of how you want to feel, think, or function — even if you're still getting things done — that's worth paying attention to. A lot of the students wait longer than they need to because they kept telling themselves it isn't bad enough yet.
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No, absolutely not.
Your school has no involvement in your counseling and no access to your records. Seeing a private therapist off-campus is entirely separate from your college's counseling center — nothing is reported to your school, noted in your academic file, or shared with anyone on campus without your explicit consent.
What happens in our sessions stays between us unless you specifically invite someone else in.
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No. Payment doesn't change confidentiality. Even if your parents are covering the cost of counseling, they have no right to the content of your sessions without your explicit consent. Financially supporting your care doesn't entitle anyone to information about it — that boundary exists to protect you, and it holds regardless of who's writing the check.
That said, confidentiality isn't about keeping your parents out of your life. When it feels safe and right, I'll often encourage you to bring the people who matter to you into what you're working on — including your parents. The goal is for you to have agency over those conversations, not to avoid them altogether.
If you’re a parent and you have questions about how of all this works, I'm happy to talk to you directly about it!
Have a question I didn’t address here? Email me!
Check Out Articles I've Written About Anxiety:
“Wait, That's Anxiety?” — Naming Common Anxiety Behaviors, Part 2
