Therapists for college students near San Diego State University

Dr. Vargas specializes in the treatment of depression, emotion dysregulation, trauma, and anxiety among teens and adults. She provides Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), and mindfulness-based therapies. She works with people experiencing the consequences of minoritization, including racial trauma, acculturative, and minority stress. She is an LGBTQ+ affirming provider. Provee terapia en español. Dr. Vargas completed her postdoctoral training at UCLA and predoctoral clinical internship at the West Los Angeles VA Medical Center. She received her PhD and MPH from the University of Southern California and her BA from McGill University.

At Healista, we believe everyone has the power within themselves to make change, they just sometimes need a little help along the way. We help clients connect to their inner safety by nurturing their intuitive skills to cope with life stressors and traumas with more ease and resilience in their daily lives. We believe in looking at the whole picture of your life to help you find clarity. We also believe in giving it to you straight, yet always wrapped in warmth and love and lot’s of laughter.

Dr. Cawkwell is board-certified by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology (ABPN) in child, adolescent, and adult psychiatry. Having been trained at several elite institutions including UPenn, NYU, Harvard/MGH, and Stanford, Dr. Cawkwell has a specific interest and expertise in ADD/ADHD, Executive Functioning, Obsessive-compulsive Disorder (OCD), Bipolar Disorder, and Early Psychosis (Schizophrenia/Schizoaffective Disorder).

Hi, I’m Amanda. I work with individuals and couples who want to get to the root of their patterns—whether it’s relational conflict, trauma symptoms, anxiety, or a sense that something deeper is in the way of fully living. Many of my clients are high-functioning on the outside but exhausted internally. Others feel flooded, shut down, or stuck in dynamics they can’t quite name. I help you slow down and listen to the wisdom of your nervous system, so we can understand how past experiences may still be living in your body—and gently unwind them. My approach integrates EMDR, somatic therapy, parts work (IFS-informed), and body-based listening tools like the Safe and Sound or Rest and Restore Protocol. I also offer Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy for those seeking an altered state of consciousness to process trauma or reconnect with meaning. When working with couples, I draw from Relational Life Therapy to help partners move beyond blame and disconnection and into clarity, ownership, and renewed connection. I also offer Discernment Counseling which is a short term focused therapy for couples unsure whether to stay or separate—with compassion for both perspectives. Outside the therapy room, I spend as much time as I can outdoors—going on “bug hunts” with my son, hiking local trails with my husband, or exploring a new interest in horseback riding. I also love yoga, travel, and quiet mornings with coffee and books. If you’re ready to get curious about what your symptoms are trying to say—and want to feel more connected to yourself and your relationships—I’d be honored to support your journey.

Please visit my profile to learn more about my services.

Please visit my profile to learn more about my services.

My name is April and I have been a nurse for 18 years. I have worked as an Emergency Room Trauma Nurse, Family Nurse Practitioner/Primary Care provider, and Women's Health provider and have provided care for our nation's Veterans. I am passionate about providing compassionate, patient-focused mental health care making sure that everyone feels heard, valued, and respected.

Our lives are full of trauma, loss, and challenge. It is easy to get overwhelmed by these experiences and fall into habits that don't serve our greater goals. I will help you find the path to the life you want. I work from a trauma informed, strengths based perspective. I have a special interest in attachment, neurology, trauma processing, and mindfulness. I have personal ties to the LGBTQ+ community and I am proud to serve individuals and families navigating identity challenges. Every person comes to therapy when the time is right for them. On this journey you will find new strengths, develop new behaviors, and reorganize you thoughts. When you are ready, I look forward to walking that path with you.

I am a licensed clinical psychologist more than 20 years of experience with providing individual therapy and psychoeducational, neuropsychological and psychodiagnostic assessment services. I treat adolescents and adults who present with various struggles from normal life issues, stress, transitions, and relationship difficulties to more serious conditions and psychological problems. Some of the conditions and struggles which I treat include depression, anxiety, attention deficit, academic problems, transition/stage of life issues, interpersonal problems, professional struggles, and adjustment problems. I provide neuropsychological and psychodiagnostic assessment services with children, adolescents and adults. I have worked in a number of different clinical settings, providing brief and long-term individual therapy, crisis intervention, and supervision as well as neuropsychological assessment, cognitive functioning screening and psycho-diagnostic assessment. Individual Psychotherapy: I believe in a collaborative approach to therapy and consider the unique qualities and presenting situations of each individual within a larger context. I take an integrative approach to my work with clients, utilizing various principles and strategies that are associated with evidence-based therapy including Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). This may include mindfulness-based techniques, as well as Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), and Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) techniques. I match my approach to each individual while providing a safe and supportive environment. I provide practical, direct, and useful strategies in a compassionate manner. I ask for feedback from patients and gather data in order to ensure that you are continually making progress while we are working together. I truly enjoy helping people make improvements to their daily life by assisting them develop strategies to manage their struggles. When we meet for individual psychotherapy, we will work together to develop the best treatment plan for you in therapy with the goal in mind to be able to reduce the frequency of sessions as your symptoms improve. We will use brief assessment measures on a weekly basis in order to monitor our progress working together and we will continually adjust our agenda as needed to meet your needs. Assessment Services: You may be seeking an assessment in order to explain and/or better understand your, or your child/adolescents’ difficulties, provide diagnostic clarification, obtain recommendations for appropriate interventions, receive reasonable and appropriate academic and/or professional accommodations, and to learn practical ways to help you/your child/loved ones function better in daily life. A referring professional, such as a mental health clinician, physician/pediatrician, or learning specialist, may be recommending that you obtain this evaluation. An assessment involves an in-depth clinical interview, school observation (when warranted), collateral contacts, review of records, administration of standardized tests, a comprehensive report, a detailed feedback session, as well as additional feedback to referring providers as needed. When working with an individual while conducting an assessment, I am working with you and collaborating with others (teachers, co-workers, tutors, mental heath providers, medical providers, loved ones, etc.) who know you well, in order to obtain as much information as possible. I then incorporate this knowledge with my expertise in interpreting the test data produced from our in-depth evaluation. This allows me to arrive at appropriate diagnoses, when warranted, and also to provide you with detailed recommendations as to how you may work to improve any areas of weakness. Recommendations for academic or professional accommodations are provided when warranted. Our main goal during the assessment process id to gain a clear and thorough understanding of your or your loved one’s strengths and limitations so that I may provide recommendation as how to improve quality of life.

Please visit my profile to learn more about my services.

Combining the imagination of a poet with the skills of a psychologist, Dr. Owen (she/her) is an engaged and active listener. She sees the goal of therapy as helping students reduce current distress, resolve symptoms, and enhance their sense of passion and purpose. Dr. Owen uses insight-oriented and existential perspectives to deepen conversations, including informed consideration of family, societal, racial, gender/sexual orientation, and cultural dynamics that may be impacting you. This approach helps provide a through-line of inquiry across sessions. To help people start feeling better in the short-term, Dr. Owen uses the skill-sets of cognitive-behavioral therapy, trauma-informed practice, mindfulness, and somatic work to address things impacting your ability to function in school and to work toward feeling better day to Dr. Owen is a secular therapist who also specializes in working with exvangelicals—people who have grown up in or left fundamentalist religious churches or spiritual groups—as well as anyone who is on a path of deconstruction, i.e., deeply examining their religious/spiritual beliefs or faith. Dr. Owen has been in academia herself, having worked at a community college, a state university, and a small, highly selective liberal arts college, so she understands things unique to academia you may be struggling with. Common issues include navigating political issues with graduate students, undergrad challenges such as choosing a major and dating, worries about career, and working through cultural and identity issues. For students residing in Hawai’i, Dr. Owen is able to accept HMSA insurance.

Balancing college with the rest of your life can feel overwhelming, but you don’t have to do it alone. I am here to offer understanding and practical support as you navigate your college or university journey. I believe in a collaborative approach that honors your unique history and individuality, ensuring you feel heard and valued rather than just evaluated. Whether you need formal assessments for test accommodations (for your classes, or high-stakes exams like the GRE, MCAT, or other licensing exams), counseling to manage the stress of increased academic demands or adjusting to being a college student, or executive functioning coaching to handle your growing workloads, I am here to help. Let’s work together to help you better understand your learning style and build a strategy that makes your educational goals achievable.

I incorporate a Soul oriented practice that is beyond ego psychology. I integrate BodySoul work, astrology, tarot, dreamwork and alchemy. I offer work with life transitions, grief, loss and finding meaning. I also offer psychedelic integration and creative expression.

Here at Rachel Wakeford Therapy, I realize that no two people are the same, and tailor my therapy to meet your specific needs as an individual. I love helping people understand the things that are holding them back with an in-depth approach. After recognizing underlying problems, clients can fully realize their strengths and adjust certain behaviors and thoughts to see things in a different, healthier way.

Whether it is the first time reaching out or you have sought counseling services before, I can help! Through a genuine connection and mindfulness approach, I can help you work through your struggles. With more than 17 years of experience working with students, I understand the stress that academics and life transitions can cause. We can figure it out together.

Vantage Point Recovery is a virtual IOP/PHP treatment program for mental health and substance use disorders that is ideally suited to fit into students' schedules. We provide individual therapy and group sessions in the mornings, afternoons and evenings, and students can attend without leaving the comfort of their home or dorm room. We provide students with a supportive virtual program that can meet any of their mental health needs. Please contact us for more information.

College can be a period of life, and it can suck. My goal is to help it be a great experience! I mostly work with students dealing with depression, anxiety, or trauma. Maybe you're having difficulty finding motivation to complete work, or feel like you're lost at sea and overwhelmed with the ton of responsibilities you have to take on. Or it could be figuring out who your are, who your people are, and what's your greater meaning in life. My goal is to help people build positive relationships and habits to bring joy and meaning to their lives. If you're looking for some support and guidance as you go through college or are looking into the future (it's some scary/awesome stuff!), please reach out for a free 15-minute consult. You can contact me via text, phone, or schedule a consultation on line. Also I'm a queer therapist, using a trauma-informed and intersectional lens in my work. If that vibes with you, sweet!

We believe that all of us are looking for a sense of fulfillment and well-being in our lives. We experience this well-being as a sense of ease, unrestricted flow of life energy. However, when negative events happen and we perceive ourselves as broken, or not safe, we constrict the flow of well-being, resulting in feelings of pain, fear, anger, grief... The Process Model of therapy helps us to identify our constrictions and release them, allowing our life energy to flow freely again, bringing the sense of relief and re-connection to self, others, and the world around us. Coming into a counseling session is much like going on a tour to explore yourself: how you got where you are today, what you can do to set yourself free, what you can do to change your life. Our counselors are much like guides employed to walk with you on this journey of self-discovery; they invite you to look deeper beyond the story, stay in the present moment and keep the focus on yourself. They are trained to respect, trust, and follow your process into and through your unresolved issues, without judgment or agenda. We are a non-profit and charitable organization incorporated in the state of California since 1982, with a mission to train pre-licenced professionals in the skill and art of psychotherapy. We have many clinicians available to work around your schedule and price range. We are committed to offer therapy to people of all means and backgrounds, and welcome diversity in all its forms.

At I Heart Therapy, we specialize in helping college students navigate the pressures of young adulthood with compassion and real-world support. Whether you’re struggling with self-esteem, social anxiety, perfectionism, burnout, or finding your identity, our therapists create a warm, judgment-free space where you can process what’s happening and build confidence in who you are. College can be an exciting time of freedom and discovery—but it can also feel overwhelming, lonely, or uncertain. Between managing academics, relationships, and figuring out your future, it’s easy to feel anxious, stuck, or like you’re not measuring up. We understand the college experience—how it can bring both independence and insecurity—and we’re here to help you find balance, heal from self-doubt, and feel more grounded and empowered in your next chapter.

My Background Hello and welcome! I have been helping people heal and live more fulfilling lives for over 20 years. I am just as passionate today as I was when I first began. My formal training began while studying psychology at UC Berkeley where I became interested in learning about the mind, human behavior and emotions, personality and developmental psychology. For several years after undergrad, I helped people with developmental disabilities by providing them with vocational, recreational and social opportunities so they can live their best lives. I later received my Masters in Clinical Social Work from Boston College where I dove deep into understanding human behavior in the context of environment. My post-masters work involved coaching parents on helping their children with autism and behavioral issues express their needs in safe and effective ways; managing a substance use helpline and providing crisis intervention and family therapy for people who were hospitalized due to severe and acute mental health issues. For three years, I provided group, family and individual therapies to clients at an Intensive Out Patient program in a bay-area hospital, teaching mindfulness, emotion regulation, distress tolerance and interpersonal effectiveness skills. My Journey Growing up I was never taught how to appropriately identify and express my feelings or process pain. This caused me to direct any pain I experienced either inward towards myself or outward towards others. This resulted in hurtful and angry outbursts towards those I love or turning inward and experiencing numbness, anxiety, depression and shame. In my own therapy, I came to discover the power of changing the relationship I had with my emotions. I explored past wounds and destructive patterns and as a result, have experienced deep healing and changes that have significantly improved the quality of my life and have allowed me to experience more intimacy, happiness, deeper fulfillment and peace in all areas of my life. The work I have done in therapy has also had a powerful impact on my ability to serve my clients. My Approach I am compassionate, caring, and non judgmental. My clients have told me they appreciate my authenticity, kindness and creativity. I create a safe environment allowing people to feel comfortable discussing even the most sensitive issues. Clients also feel comfortable sharing their thoughts and feelings on my approach to their therapy. This has lead to an open dialogue encouraging meaningful conversations, improving both the therapeutic relationship and outcomes for my clients. About Me A California native, I love spending time in nature, hiking, singing and recording songs, playing guitar, yoga, meditation, reading, traveling and spending time with friends and family. I also enjoy writing and reading about spirituality, psychology and personal development. I currently live in the San Francisco Bay Area.