College Student Therapy in NYC and New York
Therapy for College Students Navigating Anxiety, Academic Pressure, Relationships & the Transition to Adulthood
College is supposed to be exciting — a time of independence, new friendships, figuring out who you are, and building the life you want.
But it can also be overwhelming.
You may be trying to keep up academically while managing anxiety that no one else sees. You might be questioning whether you chose the right major, struggling to make friends, dealing with roommate conflict, navigating dating and relationships, or wondering why everyone else seems to be adjusting better than you are.
Maybe you were the high-achieving student in high school, but college has shaken your confidence. Or perhaps being away from home has brought up feelings, family dynamics, or parts of your identity that you finally have space to think about.
At Empowered Mind Therapy Group, we provide therapy for college students who want a private, supportive space outside of campus to figure out what they're feeling, understand themselves more deeply, and learn how to manage the pressures of college without losing themselves in the process.
Our clinicians have over 20 years of combined clinical experience. We solely work virtually and accept insurance through out-of-network benefits with fees ranging from $200-250, with sliding scale spots available (check benefits here).
College Can Be Hard — Even When You're Doing Well
You don't have to be failing your classes or having a mental health crisis to benefit from therapy.
Many of the college students we work with are doing well on paper.
They're going to class. Getting decent grades. Participating in internships. Maintaining friendships. Their parents may even think everything is going great.
But internally, they may be struggling with:
Constantly anxious or overthinking
Struggling with perfectionism or fear of failure
Feeling overwhelmed by school or work
Comparing yourself to everyone around you
Having difficulty making decisions
Experiencing dating anxiety or relationship problems
Recovering from a difficult breakup
Struggling with friendships or feeling like you don't fit in
Having difficulty setting boundaries with family
Feeling responsible for other people's feelings
Navigating ADHD or other neurodivergent concerns
Questioning your identity or sense of self
Struggling with confidence or self-worth
Experiencing burnout
Adjusting to college or life after graduation
Feeling uncertain about your career or future
Trying to become more independent from your family
Carrying the effects of childhood or relational trauma into your adult relationships
Sometimes the hardest part is explaining what's wrong when, technically, everything seems "fine."
Therapy gives you a place to figure that out.
When the Student Who Always Excelled Starts Struggling
For students who have always been high achievers, college can be particularly disorienting.
Maybe getting good grades used to come easily. You knew exactly what was expected of you, worked hard, and succeeded.
Then you got to college and suddenly everyone around you was accomplished too.
Classes became harder. There was less structure. Professors weren't reminding you about assignments. You had to manage your own sleep, schedule, friendships, studying, meals, and responsibilities — all while trying to figure out who you are.
A B doesn't just feel like a B.
It can feel like evidence that maybe you're not as smart as everyone thought you were.
Therapy can help you separate your sense of worth from your performance, understand the anxiety underneath perfectionism, and develop healthier ways of approaching achievement.
Anxiety in College Doesn't Always Look Like Panic Attacks
College anxiety can be surprisingly easy to hide.
You might spend hours rewriting an assignment because it doesn't feel good enough. Avoid checking your email because you're afraid you've missed something. Replay conversations with friends after you leave. Compare yourself to classmates on LinkedIn. Call home constantly because making decisions on your own feels overwhelming.
Or your anxiety may show up physically — difficulty sleeping, stomach problems, headaches, exhaustion, tension, or feeling like your body never completely relaxes.
Our therapists help college students understand what is driving their anxiety and develop tools to manage it rather than organizing their entire lives around avoiding it.
ADHD, Executive Functioning & College
College often exposes executive-functioning difficulties that were easier to compensate for in high school.
Without the same external structure, students with ADHD or other neurodivergent traits may suddenly struggle with time management, starting assignments, keeping track of deadlines, maintaining routines, studying effectively, or balancing academics with everything else happening in their lives.
This can quickly turn into:
I'm behind → I feel overwhelmed → I avoid it → I get further behind → I feel terrible about myself.
Therapy can help interrupt that cycle.
We can work on practical strategies for managing responsibilities while also addressing the shame, anxiety, perfectionism, or negative self-talk that often develops after years of feeling like you should be able to do things differently.
Finding Your Identity Away From Home
College may be one of the first times you have enough distance from your family to ask:
Who am I when I'm not just someone's child?
You may begin questioning beliefs you grew up with, exploring your racial or cultural identity, reconsidering family expectations, understanding your sexuality, or realizing that some of the dynamics you thought were normal growing up actually affected you deeply.
That process can be freeing.
It can also bring guilt.
Our therapists can help you explore your identity without telling you who you should become. Therapy can be a space to understand where you came from while deciding what you want to carry forward.
College Students of Color & Navigating PWIs
Being a student of color at a predominantly white college or university can bring another layer to the college experience.
You may be navigating classrooms where you're one of the only students who looks like you, subtle or overt racism, pressure to represent your entire community, code-switching, questions about belonging, or the exhaustion of constantly deciding whether something was "actually about race."
You may also feel caught between different worlds — changing and growing at college while still feeling deeply connected to your family, culture, or community at home.
As a practice of women of color, we understand that mental health doesn't exist separately from culture, race, family, identity, and the environments you're navigating.
Therapy gives you space where those experiences don't have to be explained away before they can be understood.
Friendships, Dating & Relationships in College
College relationships can be intense.
Friend groups change. Roommate relationships become complicated. Best friends grow apart. Dating may be exciting, confusing, heartbreaking — or all three in the same semester.
You may notice yourself becoming extremely anxious when someone pulls away, staying in relationships you know aren't good for you, avoiding vulnerability altogether, or repeatedly choosing people who leave you feeling uncertain.
Therapy can help you understand your relationship patterns, communicate more directly, develop healthier boundaries, and learn what emotional safety actually feels like.
Therapy for College Students With Childhood Trauma or Difficult Family Relationships
For some students, leaving home creates enough distance to finally recognize how much their childhood affected them.
You may notice yourself becoming anxious when you don't know whether someone is upset with you. You might have trouble saying no, feel responsible for everyone's emotions, struggle with perfectionism, or feel enormous guilt whenever you disappoint your family.
Sometimes college doesn't create these patterns.
It simply makes them easier to see.
Our trauma-informed therapists can help you understand the connection between earlier experiences and what you're struggling with now — without making your entire therapy experience about the past.
We can work on what happened and help you build the skills you need for the life you're creating now.
Read more about the Effects of Childhood Trauma, growing up with Narcissistic Parents or Emotionally Immature Parents.
Therapy for Graduate Students
College-related stress doesn't necessarily end after undergrad.
Graduate, doctoral, medical, law, and other professional students may experience intense academic pressure alongside imposter syndrome, financial stress, demanding workloads, competitive environments, relationship changes, and uncertainty about whether the career they've worked toward is actually what they want.
Therapy can provide a place to work through these concerns without having to perform competence every minute of the day.
When You're Worried About Your College Student
A Note for Parents
Sending your child to college can be an enormous adjustment for parents too.
It may feel like just yesterday they were little, hanging on your every word, reaching for your hand, and looking to you for answers to everything. You were the person they turned to when something went wrong, when they were scared, or when they simply needed reassurance that everything would be okay. Now, seemingly overnight, they're navigating a world of decisions, relationships, disappointments, and challenges that you can't always protect them from. And perhaps one of the hardest parts of parenting a college student is learning how to support them when you can no longer be there to fix everything.
You may have a student who once seemed confident and independent who is suddenly calling home crying, skipping classes, struggling academically, withdrawing socially, or telling you they want to come home.
Or the changes may be subtler.
They seem overwhelmed every time you speak. Their confidence has disappeared. They're constantly exhausted. They're struggling to make friends. They aren't taking care of themselves the way they used to.
You want to help — but you also know they're becoming an adult.
Therapy can provide something different from parental support: a confidential space where your college student can develop their own coping skills, understand their emotions, make decisions, practice asking for help, and gradually become more confident navigating adulthood.
Our goal isn't to replace you as a source of support.
It's to help your college student build the internal resources to support themselves.
Helping College Students Become More Independent — Not More Dependent on Therapy
One of our goals in therapy with college students is to help them build confidence in their own ability to navigate difficult situations.
That might mean learning how to:
Regulate anxiety without immediately calling home for reassurance
Communicate with professors and advocate for themselves
Navigate conflict with roommates or friends
Recognize when they need help and ask for it
Create routines that actually work for them
Make decisions without needing absolute certainty
Set appropriate boundaries with family
Recover from mistakes rather than spiraling into shame
Handle rejection, disappointment, and failure
Trust themselves more
College isn't just preparation for a career.
It's also practice becoming an adult.
Therapy can help students navigate that transition with support while still developing genuine independence.
Therapeutic Techniques We May Use With College Students
Therapy isn't one-size-fits-all. Depending on what you're struggling with, we may incorporate:
Cognitive & Behavioral Strategies
Identify anxious thoughts, perfectionism, avoidance, negative self-talk, and patterns that keep you feeling stuck.
Emotion Regulation & Mindfulness
Learn how to tolerate difficult emotions without immediately avoiding, suppressing, or becoming overwhelmed by them.
ADHD & Executive Functioning Support
Develop realistic systems for managing time, assignments, routines, procrastination, and competing responsibilities.
Attachment & Relationship Work
Understand how earlier relationships may influence friendships, dating, boundaries, conflict, and your expectations of other people.
Trauma-Informed & Somatic Therapy
Explore how difficult experiences may continue to affect your emotions, relationships, beliefs, and nervous system.
Values & Identity Work
Figure out what you believe, value, and want — separate from expectations about who you're supposed to be.
Meet Our Therapists
Finding the Right Therapist for Your College Student
Whether you're a college student looking for a therapist yourself or a parent helping your student find support, finding the right fit matters. Our therapists work with college students navigating the academic, emotional, social, and developmental challenges that can emerge during these years.
About Vernee Brooks, LPC, LMHC
ADHD, Neurodivergence, Identity & Relationships
Licensed for therapy in New York, New Jersey & Texas. Virtual Only.
I especially enjoy working with college students who are navigating ADHD, neurodivergence, anxiety, identity (racial & sexuality), relationships, and the transition to greater independence. College can be particularly challenging when you're suddenly expected to manage academics, deadlines, friendships, relationships, and daily life with far less structure than you had before.
With experience supporting neurodivergent youth and families, I understand that ADHD and executive functioning difficulties can affect much more than grades. We can work on procrastination, overwhelm, organization, emotional regulation, self-esteem, and the shame that can come from feeling like you should be able to keep up.
As a woman of color and a creative myself, I also enjoy supporting students of color navigating predominantly white institutions, creatives, and students who are still figuring out where they belong. Therapy can be a space where you don't have to perform, explain yourself, or have everything figured out — you can simply start where you are.
Education
M.S. in Clinical Mental Health Counseling, Walden University
BA in Psychology, Rutgers University
Credentials
Advanced training in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), and Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)
Specialized expertise in anxiety and navigating identity concerns (racial, & sexuality).
Extensive experience with neurodivergent individuals
About Christine Pacheco, LMSW
Anxiety, Perfectionism & High-Achieving Students
I am licensed for therapy in New York. Virtual Only.
I love working with college students who are high-achieving, anxious, perfectionistic, or accustomed to putting enormous pressure on themselves to succeed. You may have been the student who always did well in school, made your family proud, and seemed to have everything under control — until college made it much harder to keep all the plates spinning.
Together, we can work on academic anxiety, fear of failure, procrastination, people-pleasing, confidence, relationships, family expectations, and uncertainty about your major, career, or future. We'll also explore the beliefs underneath the pressure — including the feeling that your accomplishments determine your worth or that disappointing other people means you've failed.
I also enjoy helping students navigate dating and relationships, changing friendships, boundaries with family, and becoming more confident making decisions independently. Therapy can give you a place to take some of the pressure off while learning how to trust yourself as you figure out who you want to become.
Education
Master of Social Work, Fordham University
Bachelor of Arts in Psychology, Brooklyn College
Credentials
Advanced training in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Attachment-Based Therapy, Person-Centered Therapy, and Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)
Specialized expertise in relational patterns within friendships and romantic relationships
Extensive experience supporting BIPOC students navigate perfectionism with family/cultural expectations.
Why Work With a Therapist Outside of Your College?
Campus counseling centers can be an excellent resource, particularly when students need immediate or short-term support.
Some students, however, want ongoing therapy with the same therapist or want to work more deeply on concerns that extend beyond one semester — including anxiety, ADHD, trauma, family relationships, identity, perfectionism, or longstanding relationship patterns.
Working with a therapist outside of school also gives you a space that is completely separate from your academic environment.
You don't have to stop therapy because finals ended or you're starting another semester.
Getting Started
Starting therapy doesn't mean something is seriously wrong.
Sometimes it simply means you don't want to keep figuring everything out alone.
The first step is a free connection call. We'll talk about what you're experiencing, what you're looking for in therapy, answer any questions you have, and help determine which therapist may be the best fit for you.
If you decide to move forward, your initial intake session is 60 minutes and is separate from ongoing weekly (or biweekly) therapy sessions, which are 45 minutes.
Understanding Cost & Insurance
We are out-of-network providers, which means we don't bill insurance directly. However, many clients have out-of-network benefits that reimburse a portion of their therapy costs. Reimbursement varies by plan, but our clients typically receive around 50% reimbursement, with some plans reimbursing as little as 30% and others covering up to 100%.
We provide a superbill that you can submit to your insurance company for reimbursement. We also work with Thrizer, which can help simplify the reimbursement process by allowing eligible clients to pay only their portion upfront rather than waiting for reimbursement.
Want to know what your plan covers? [Check Your Out-of-Network Benefits →]
Individual session fees range from $200–$250, depending on the clinician. We also offer a limited number of sliding-scale spots.
We offer virtual therapy throughout New York and New Jersey.
Ready to take the next step? Schedule a free call and let's talk about what you're looking for in therapy.
Therapy For College Students FAQs
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College students seek therapy for anxiety, depression, academic stress, perfectionism, ADHD, procrastination, social anxiety, loneliness, relationships, breakups, family conflict, identity concerns, trauma, burnout, and difficulty adjusting to college. You don't need to have a diagnosis or be experiencing a crisis to benefit from therapy.
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Parents frequently help their college-aged children research therapists, particularly when a student is overwhelmed. However, therapy tends to work best when the student is involved in choosing their therapist and wants to participate in treatment. For adult college students, therapy is generally confidential, and your student's therapist cannot routinely share information about their sessions without appropriate permission, subject to applicable legal and safety exceptions.
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Sometimes academic problems aren't primarily academic. Anxiety, depression, ADHD, perfectionism, burnout, sleep difficulties, trauma, and major life transitions can all make it harder to concentrate, stay motivated, organize responsibilities, or complete assignments. Therapy can help identify what's contributing to the difficulty and develop strategies for addressing it.
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Yes. Wanting to leave college can have many different meanings. A student may be experiencing homesickness, anxiety, depression, loneliness, academic difficulties, roommate problems, a poor fit with their school, or simply realizing that they want something different. Therapy can help students slow down, understand what's driving the desire to leave, and make a thoughtful decision rather than assuming that staying or leaving is automatically the right choice.
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Yes. Therapy can help students with ADHD understand their executive-functioning challenges, develop strategies for managing school and daily life, and address anxiety, perfectionism, low self-esteem, or shame that may accompany ADHD.
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Yes. Our therapists understand that race, culture, identity, belonging, and experiences of bias can significantly affect a student's college experience. Students can explore these experiences in therapy without separating them from the rest of their mental health.
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Both can be valuable. Campus counseling centers may be particularly useful for short-term support and accessing school-specific resources. An outside therapist may be preferable when a student wants consistent, ongoing therapy or wants to work more deeply on longstanding concerns such as anxiety, trauma, ADHD, family dynamics, perfectionism, or relationship patterns.
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Yes. We work with graduate and professional students navigating academic pressure, anxiety, perfectionism, burnout, imposter syndrome, relationships, identity, and uncertainty about their careers or future.