College & Grad Students · Ages 18–24
Counseling for College Students
Academic pressure, anxiety, relationships, and identity with counselors who take your faith seriously. In person in Lynchburg and Forest, and by telehealth across Virginia.
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Who this page is for
This page is for college and grad students, roughly 18 to 24. If you’re a parent looking for help for a high schooler, start with teen and adolescent counseling. If you’re an athlete and what you want is performance work, start with sport and performance counseling.
Under 18?
High Performance
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You know where the counseling center is. You haven’t gone.
In the NCAA’s most recent research, about half of college athletes said they’d feel comfortable seeking support from a licensed mental health provider on campus. Nearly seventy percent said they had people on campus they trusted.
So the help exists. The trust exists. And a lot of students still don’t walk in.
Zac Clinton, who counsels students and athletes at our Forest and Lynchburg offices, asks it this way:
“Why is there that lack of comfort to reach out, and to actually be willing to get to the end of ourselves and just simply ask for help?”
You have a coach for everything else. Somebody for strength and conditioning. Somebody for nutrition. Tear a muscle and you’re in the training room that afternoon.
“But when it comes to our mental health, it’s the one thing that is completely underdeveloped that we just don’t turn to.”
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What actually shows up
Anxiety before an exam that behaves exactly like anxiety before a game. Heart racing, breath going shallow, sometimes throwing up. Students say it comes out of nowhere. It never does.
Grades slipping in a way that doesn’t match the effort you’re putting in. Often what’s happened is that one kind of performance has quietly become a stand-in for another.
Relationships. This is the big one, and almost nobody books an appointment for it.
“Relationships will impact performance. Relationship with yourself, relationship with your coach, relationship with your teammates, relationship with your significant other, with your family, with the Lord. Because all of those things begin to influence the way that you view yourself. And the way in which you view yourself determines the story you tell yourself about yourself, which naturally will impact performance on and off the field.”
And then the thing people reach for when it gets loud.
“Vices. Finding other things, other outlets to numb, to anesthetize some of the worry, fear, pain you might be experiencing.”
That works. For a few hours. Which is exactly the problem.
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Pay attention to what you pay attention to
Zac was a student athlete with performance anxiety bad enough that he was throwing up before games. He finally went to his dad about it.
“I was so sick and tired of being sick and tired. And I went to my dad and just said, dad, listen, I’m really struggling with the anxiety before games.”
What his dad told him is still the first tool he hands students.
“Just pay attention to what you pay attention to. Let’s start focusing on metacognition, which is thinking about what you think about.”
Here’s what that gets you:
“When I was experiencing the physiological symptoms, there was always a psychological root. There was a belief, a thought, something I was fixated on, even subconsciously, that was leading to that emotion within my body.”
The stomach knots first. The thought that tied the knot was there before it. Learning to run that backwards, from what you feel to what you were thinking, is most of the work. You can’t argue with a thought you can’t see.
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What counseling actually looks like here
The first session is a conversation. There’s nothing to fail.
“There’s a confidentiality here where everything that’s shared here stays here. And we’re gonna have a lot of fun working through your story and processing your journey together.”
Your coach doesn’t get a report. Neither do your parents, if you’re eighteen or older.
We see students in person at our Forest and Lynchburg offices and by telehealth anywhere in Virginia, which matters over breaks and summers when you’re not on campus.
The first session
A conversation. There’s nothing to fail.
Confidential
Your coach doesn’t get a report. Neither do your parents, if you’re eighteen or older.
In person or telehealth
Forest and Lynchburg offices, and telehealth anywhere in Virginia over breaks and summers too.
FAQ
Got questions? We’ve got answers
If you’re eighteen or older, no. What you share is confidential, with the narrow legal exceptions your counselor will walk you through in the first session.
Yes. Our Virginia-licensed counselors can see you by telehealth anywhere in the state, so you’re not restarting with somebody new every break.
No, and most students aren’t. Zac puts it this way: “My hope and prayer is to change the stigma, so that mental healthcare is a proactive process instead of a reactive one.”
Campus counseling centers do good work and they’re usually free. They also carry heavy caseloads, often cap your number of sessions, and they’re part of the school you attend. Some students want somewhere separate. Both are reasonable.
See our insurance page. We also have a sliding scale if you’re paying out of pocket.
Take the first step
The first session is a conversation. There’s nothing to fail.
In person at our Forest and Lynchburg offices, or by telehealth anywhere in Virginia.