in St. Louis, Missouri
Sports Psychologist
Counseling St. Louis | Sports Psychologist St. Louis (Therapy with Licensed Clinicians)
Our therapists care about good outcomes, and get them consistently!
91% of our clients see improvements, with 82% achieving their goals within 12 sessions!
Sports Psychology-Informed Anxiety Therapy for Teens and College Athletes
High-performing athletes experience real pressure. Whether it’s the anxiety before a big game, frustration after a tough loss, or the stress of perfectionism creeping into every part of life - it’s not just about mindset. It’s about mental health.
At Compassionate Counseling St. Louis, we offer specialized counseling for teens and college athletes who are struggling with sports anxiety, performance pressure, and burnout.
While we are not sports psychologists, our team of fully licensed therapists and counselors are trained in the same evidence-based approaches used in performance psychology - including Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), and outcome-based anxiety treatment — all delivered through a compassionate, collaborative lens.
Support for the Mental Side of Sports
You might be searching for a sports psychologist in St. Louis, but what you really need is a warm, expert therapist who understands the mental health side of competition.
You may be searching for a sports psychologist because you’re seeing:
Performance anxiety during games, meets, or tryouts
Pre-game panic, stomach aches, or trouble sleeping
Overthinking mistakes or obsessing about stats
Perfectionism and negative self-talk
Trouble handling pressure from coaches, parents, or teammates
Anger and irritability when things don’t go as planned
Burnout or a loss of motivation for the sport they used to love
We treat those symptoms every day - because they’re anxiety symptoms.
At Compassionate Counseling St. Louis, we work with athletes who look calm on the outside but are melting down on the inside. We help teens and young adults understand what’s going on in their brains and bodies, build mental flexibility, and learn tools to stay grounded during high-pressure moments.
Our expert anxiety therapists will help you build the skills you need to manage anxiety, whatever that looks like for you - and whether that’s in person or online.
We Help Athletes Build True Mental Toughness:
Mental toughness isn’t about shutting down your emotions. It’s about learning how to respond - not react - to the stress. Through therapy, we teach:
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Visualization and grounding techniques to manage nerves and help you be calm and focused, instead of anxious and distracted.
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Cognitive restructuring to challenge the inner critic and take charge of your own self talk.
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Values-based motivation, so athletes compete with clarity and purpose.
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Mindfulness and ACT tools to stay present and focused, along with anger management techniques when you don’t get the result you want.
Expert Counseling for St. Louis Athletes:
Next Steps
Our therapists specialize in CBT for anxiety, anger, and perfectionism.
We know how high-stakes it can feel when sports are part of your identity, your future, your college scholarship, your goals for your life. We track outcomes weekly to make sure therapy is helping - and if it’s not, we change course.
We offer in-person therapy in St. Louis and online therapy across Missouri for:
High school athletes
Club and travel team athletes
College and D1 athletes
Perfectionistic teens and young adults in competitive environments
Whether your teen is a gymnast who freezes during meets, a soccer player who spirals after every mistake, or a student-athlete who’s overwhelmed by pressure - they don’t need to push through the anxiety alone.
Ready to Talk?
We’re here to help. We’re not sports psychologists, but our licensed therapists understand the unique needs of athletes. We provide specialized anxiety therapy that supports athletic performance, emotional regulation, and long-term mental well-being.
Frequently Asked Questions for Sports Psychologist St. Louis
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The best type of therapy, or therapy modality, is the kind that is tailored to you.
To get nitty gritty, at Compassionate Counseling St. Louis, our therapists and counselors incorporate play therapy interventions, art therapy, trauma-focused therapy when needed, and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy.
And to ensure that we’re tailoring our approach to what you really need, and that things are actually getting better, our therapists use feedback informed treatment to track your outcome scores, along with your session rating - meaning you get to let us know how we did as your therapist and how we can improve.
We incorporate that feedback each and every session to ensure that things are actually getting better - and if they’re not, we can change up our approach, try a new activity, or even refer you to another specialist when we’re simply not the best fit.
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Coping with overwhelming emotions is a crucial part of managing anxiety and anxiety-driven anger. We incorporate relaxation skills into most sessions, and we have an in depth resource list full of awesome coping strategies. Our three favorites?
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As therapists and counselors, we may be biased… but, yeah! We feel like therapy can really make an impact on your anxiety. That’s why you’re here, right?
Anxiety can lead to physical reactions, like muscle tension, increased heart rate, and headaches or stomach aches. It can also lead to behavioral concerns, like constantly getting into trouble at school, being really clingy, feeling really nervous about new situations.
Kids and teens with anxiety often feel like there’s something wrong with them, or even that they’re a bad kid. Parents feel like they’re at the end of their rope and they don’t know what to do next.
Anxiety therapy can teach you and your child strategies for managing emotions, solving problems, releasing stress and tension - and coming up with a real plan to move forward.
So, let’s get started with a free phone consult and talk more.
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CBT is the gold standard for anxiety therapy, and is incredibly well researched. All of our therapists use the foundation of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy to build up our approach in a way that’s 100% tailored to you or your child. We find that learning about the cognitive triangle in particular - the CBT concept that shows how your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors all impact one another - really can empower you to recognize that change is possible. You can tell yourself something else, or choose a relaxation strategy, or find a healthy behavior, and by doing so you allow your anxiety to take a back seat, rather than feeling like your anxiety is in charge of you.
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When it comes to anxiety therapy, finding the right fit is crucial. You want to ensure you’re working with an anxiety specialist, not just a therapist or counselor who says they’re familiar with it. Anxiety can present in tricky ways, and can even mask itself as an anger management issue, or perfectionism that’s actually toxic. That’s why it’s so important to ask your therapist before you book - how do you assess for anxiety? What is your favorite way to work with it? How do you track outcomes to make sure things are getting better? All questions we’re happy to answer during our free initial phone consultation!
Spotlight on:
Molly Shaffer
MA, LPC
Molly is our Senior Therapist, who especially loves working with anxious, angry kids and teens and has specialized experience in trauma focused therapies.
Get started with a free consultation
Schedule a free 15 minute phone consultation to talk further about anxiety therapy in St. Louis. We’ll talk about what’s going on with your and/or your child or teen, how we would approach it, and immediate next steps you can take.