Therapists for college students near Pittsburgh, PA

Accepting new clients. Let me help you help yourself to be more content and happy. Are you anxious all the time, maybe even depressed? Do you feel overwhelmed every day? Does it take all of your energy to do your job then come home and be a parent or a partner? Is your anxiety and stress starting to interfere with your life and making everything a challenge? Together, we can take a look at the in-depth causes of these issues and what exacerbates them. Not only will I help you learn to cope, I will also help you respond better, set boundaries, learn to regain a feeling of control, rationalize, and overcome these emotions.

We are a small group therapy practice serving clients in person in Pittsburgh, PA and via telehealth throughout Pennsylvania. Our practice centers the needs and experiences of marginalized people and populations, especially those who are LGBTQIA+ people, neurodivergent, or practicing alternative relationship structures (e.g., ethical nonmonogamy). All of our clinicians have lived experience with at least one of these topics, and we are committed to inclusive, trauma-informed care. Check out our clinician bios on our website to see if we sound like a good fit for your needs, and feel free to contact us with questions!

Hey, Hi, I'm Fig—I'm a witchy, disabled, neurospicy, agender, queerdo who also happens to be a therapist. As an AuDHDer who has spent many years navigating the crushing weight of autism burnout in late stage capitalism, and the "Too Muchness" that seems to get tacked onto neurodivergent identities, I need you to know that I'm not here to "fix" you. I don't view therapy as a place where we show up and magically make everything perfect, and I'm not a therapist who claims to have a solution for every problem, or even most of them. I am here to walk with you as you reconnect with your body, your voice, and your resilience. I work primarily with neurodivergent, disabled LGBTQIA+ individuals and couples from a person-centered, trauma-focused and trauma-informed lens, which means I want our time together to be collaborative. I don't assume I know everything about you or what's going on in your brain, and I show up to sessions ready to do what feels good to you. Don't feel like "getting into it today"? Cool. Let's hang out and color instead. Need to sit on the floor for this or every session? Done. Whether you just need to vent or you need someone to cry with you while you process some really tough stuff—I've got you. I might be a good fit for you if you're interested in processing relationship trauma and abuse, processing sexual trauma, understanding healthy relationship building and communication (in monogamous or ENM/poly/non monogamy relationships), are looking to explore kink dynamics or gender & sexuality, are looking to process grief, understand your neurodiversity better, or just need someone to talk to who might just "get" it. Therapy is hard work. If you're already this far you've already begun your hard work. Pretty cool, huh? I'm proud of you. Keep going.

Hi, I’m Sabrina, and I am a queer, neurodivergent woman doing her best to balance working full time, engaging with my amazing partners, spending time with friends and comrades, and trying to makes this hellscape we call our country a little bit more bearable. I’m also a person-centered therapist. Who I Help I love working with folks surrounding LGBTQIA+ related concerns, gender identity, trauma & PTSD, neurodiversity, and relationship concerns especially folks in non- traditional relationships. I also work with those struggling with anxiety, depression, family conflict and dysfunction, codependency, intimacy concerns, parenting, ADHD, body image, and understanding emotions both ours and other people’s. While most of this profile is geared towards adults, I do also work with kids. I use a lot of play in sessions to help kids process what is going on in their world, but I also find a lot of my young clients are able and willing to sit and just talk for a while. Relationship Counseling I believe that one of the things that makes us human is the need to have relationships with other people. When I was in graduate school, I was always the odd woman out because I refused to call what I wanted to do “couples counseling” for two key reasons: 1) As someone who is happily polyamorous, I am well aware that not all romantic attachments involve exactly two people. 2) Romantic relationships are not the only types of relationships that matter. Ruptures in your relationship with your parents, your best friend, or a colleague can be extremely painful, and sometimes talking to a third party can help that relationship be repaired. For relationship counseling, I typically draw upon Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT). This modality explores the ways that all parties form attachments, and how they feel secure (or insecure) in them. It helps us dissect the current pattern (which Sue Johnson, creator of EFT, calls “the tango”), and then together, we develop new steps for the next time a disagreement occurs. Disagreeing with each other is a normal, healthy thing for people to do; therapy can help us learn how to disagree without feeling threatened. I am a big believer that there are many, many ways to have a healthy relationship and that folks are capable of making their own choices about what works for them. I will honor your relationship whether you’re monogamous, ethically nonmonogamous, polyamarous, kinky, vanilla, or exploring different styles to figure out what works best for you. Trauma Trauma rewires our brains. It can change us into people we no longer recognize. Healing, however, will also rewire us. What doesn’t kill us makes us hypervigilant and untrusting —it’s the healing that makes us stronger. While my specific approach for supporting you will be based on what you need, I generally start by exploring with you what gives you a sense of safety and ways we can return to that sense of safety when things get stressful. We will explore your past at your pace. It will be uncomfortable at times, but I will be with you every step of the way. It is also important to me to do our best to make sure our sessions end on a note that feels most comfortable for you. (Before I became a therapist myself, I had a therapist who consistently ended sessions while I was highly agitated and stressed—even after I pointed out this was happening and asked her to stop. I vowed to never do that to someone else.) Gender Identity Gender is complicated, and societal expectations are a big part of why that is. Regardless of whether or not the doctor guessed your gender correctly when you entered the world, exploring the ways in which you express your gender is often an ongoing, and sometimes complex, process. I use inclusive Feminist Therapy along with my Person-Centered Approach when talking about gender. I have supported people both in my personal and professional lives, as they’ve navigated their own relationship with their gender. While I feel that I have explored my own relationship to gender more than the average cis person, I do want to acknowledge that I do not have direct lived experience with being trans. What Can You Expect in the Room with Me? While I do still read academic articles and books, I am far more likely in session to reference a meme or Tik-Tok I just saw that feels relevant to the situation being discussed. I draw upon multiple modalities, depending on the concern we are working through and what you believe may work best for you. Person-centered Therapy however is my primary lens and it will show up even when I’m pulling from EFT techniques, Feminist Therapy, and solution-focused. Person-centered therapy is all about congruence, which means accepting ourselves fully and being our authentic selves. The process of becoming congruent is similar to forming a deep bond with someone else: your best friend has flaws, sure, but you don’t try to change them because you love them how they are. Becoming congruent is very similar to falling in love with yourself, and it is one of my favorite things to watch other people do. I have been “on the other side of the couch” a few times, and I have had amazing, horrible, and mediocre experiences as a client. In fact, I became a therapist in part because I’d had a bad experience and recognized an enormous need for more relationship counselors who understand polyamory. Even better would have been a relationship counselor who was actively practicing ENM. Cue the realization that I could be that someone, add a very supportive wife who was willing to take on student loans, and here we are. Favorite Therapist Quote “When I look at a sunset as I did the other evening, I don’t find myself saying, ‘Soften the orange a little on the right hand corner, and put a bit more purple along the base, and use a little more pink in the cloud color.’ I don’t do that. I don’t try to control a sunset. I watch it with awe as it unfolds.” —Carl Rogers, A Way of Being

My name is Allison Fox, I graduated from the counseling program at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, and I hold my BS in Psychology from the University of Pittsburgh. Prior to pursing my graduate degree, I worked as a case manager, giving me valuable experience working with marginalized communities, including individuals impacted by housing scarcity in urban areas. My work has taken me into hospitals, nonprofit organizations, and homes—meeting people where they are and honoring the complexity of their lives. I believe that healing happens in spaces where authenticity is met with safety and connection. My approach is collaborative, transparent, and deeply rooted in the lived realities of my clients. Using frameworks from parts work/Internal Family Systems (IFS) and Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT), I aim to help clients move beyond labels into a deeper holistic understanding of the core behaviors and emotional attachments that shape their experiences. I am LGBTQIA and neurodiversity affirming, and committed to providing a therapeutic space that acknowledges the impacts of systemic oppression and trauma while fostering resilience, self-awareness, and growth. My work is informed by a belief in the power of relationships, the importance of self-compassion, and the possibility of change. Wherever you are in your journey, I look forward to working together in a way that feels meaningful, empowering, and true to you.

Becoming a therapist and social worker has always felt like my 'ikigai'. My own lived experiences have shaped and inspired me to create a beacon of healing for others. I know firsthand the power of being held in affirming, compassionate support—an experience that profoundly changed the trajectory of my life. Now, I continue to carry this forward in my work. As a therapist, I see it as a privilege to witness growth across the spectrum of the journey. I view pain and suffering as doorways to new experiences, discoveries, and overall ways of living- and I feel honored to be by my client's side on this journey. As I walk alongside my clients, I continue to learn, not only about them, but through them. I truly enjoy working with different people across the human experience, but I especially feel that I can build deep rapport with those with whom I share some lived experience. We could be a good fit if any of these hit home for you: You feel like you are crumbling under the weight of chronic pain and/or illness(es). Searching for help but only getting perpetually dismissed by the systems that were designed to 'help'. You feel that these systems and living in an ableist society further poke at these painful wounds. I understand the ins and outs of this and the emotional toll that living with such illnesses and engaging with these systems brings on—you are safe to be heard here. You are a highly sensitive or empathic human trying to navigate these difficult times. You want to process past trauma—at your own pace. You were/are the scapegoat or black sheep of your familial system. You grew up in a dysfunctional family system. You want to step into, process, or explore your sexual and/or gender identity. In therapy with me, you can expect me to show up authentically to create a space where—hopefully—you feel that you can do the same. I understand and honor that we are human first, and this may look different on any given day. I am here to listen to understand the various aspects of your story and how you got to where you are today. Overall, therapy with me is holistic, compassionate, and grounded in human connection. I do not expect you to conform or leave any part of yourself at the door—I truly believe that if I am not seeing you holistically, that I am not seeing YOU. Shoes off? Need to keep your hands busy? Need to sit on the floor for a bit? No problem-—this is a space to bring (or find) your whole self. I honor my lived experiences in this profession as they have taught me so much beyond my professional and educational training. As a queer person living with invisible chronic/disabling illnesses who grew up in a (very) rural town on the border of Mexico in Texas, I know what it is like to have to hide parts of yourself to survive. I also know the toll that takes. Additionally, I am a trauma survivor, and while my story may not mirror yours, I see it as a source of fuel to my curiosity and the depth of my empathy. Outside of work, I recharge by surrounding myself with good company—human or creature. You might find me curled up with a cat while getting lost in media, making art, or wandering through the forest being consumed by moss and water sounds. I also love board games, fantasy, and may or may not imagine myself as a fairy sometimes—off on a quest to slay a dragon— cue being overstimulated at the grocery store. Through it all, I remain my awkward, empathic, and goofy self.

I have experience working with emerging adults (18-21 years old), providing individual counseling surrounding life transitions and identity development. I earned my bachelor’s degree at University of North Carolina- Asheville in 2010. Before moving to Pittsburgh, I worked in a whole person centered recovery program helping people with substance use and mental health challenges. I draw from therapeutic frameworks such as existential-humanistic, Dialectical Behavior Therapy, and Emotionally Focused Therapy. At the core, my therapeutic perspective is curiosity and compassion. It is my role to understand and honor your complexities and contradictions, instead of neutralizing them. I want to work with adult individuals and couples who are interested in their past, present, and future selves. I will bring a non-judgmental, person-centered approach that prioritizes your needs and wants in every session. I believe healing and growth doesn’t happen in a bubble, but in the moments of connection where you can be both genuine and vulnerable. My purpose as a therapist is to create a safe space for you to cultivate authenticity, explore those vulnerabilities, and move towards your goals. My practice is strongly informed by the urgency and reality of our current times. Mental health is not just an individual issue, but intertwined with our systemic and community environments. I will seek to understand your unique lived experiences, especially if those experiences include marginalization and oppression. I hope to help you navigate these real overwhelming struggles and find paths towards resistance, empowerment, and joy.

With over 15 years in the mental health field, I'm thrilled to begin the next chapter of my career as a therapist and clinical supervisor at Congruent Relationships. I earned my master's degree in Couples and Family Therapy with a specialization in Art Therapy from Antioch University Seattle in 2014. After returning to Pittsburgh, I spent several years in community mental health, gaining a broad range of experience working with individuals and families of all ages in various settings. For the past five years, I've worked in private practice as a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist. During this time, I trained under a certified sex therapist, which equipped me to support individuals and couples with diverse sexual concerns and goals. My practice is built on an inclusive, sex-positive, trauma-informed, anti-racist, anti-ableism, and anti-colonialism lens. I am committed to providing gender-affirming care to individuals, couples, and families within the LGBTQIA+ community. I also specialize in treating neurodivergent individuals. I am passionate about empowering them and their loved ones to navigate the world, celebrating their unique brains and abilities while developing skills and accommodations to overcome challenges and achieve their goals. I approach therapy with a foundation of non-judgmental curiosity, collaboration, humor, and humanity. I utilize systemic theory and an eclectic combination of approaches, including talk therapy, art therapy, sex therapy, mindfulness, and somatic interventions, tailoring each one to a client's specific needs.

I’m Grace! In the therapy room, I show up authentically. We’re both human, and I believe that connecting on a human level rather than just a professional level fosters a deeper connection and the potential for stronger trust and safety to be built. I spend more time than many on building a strong foundation of rapport with clients through getting to know the stories that built them. I feel strongly that every individual is an expert on themself, and I am a learner in the first stage of therapy. It’s so important to me that you know that I will accept you unconditionally. In therapy, there will absolutely be a time and place for challenging and calling you on your bullshit when appropriate. However, I also believe that in order for the challenging to feel safe, it is necessary for there to be a foundation of non-judgment and understanding that each person is doing the best they can in a given situation. I am committed to doing everything I can to understand where you may be coming from, what led you there, and why you made the decisions you did. That doesn’t mean I’ll always agree with you, and I may offer other perspectives, but I will consistently prioritize validation and giving context to your self-judgments. How do you know if I’m the right therapist for you? If any of the following resonate with you, I may be a good fit for your needs: You struggle with aspects of your identity (gender, sexuality, life stage, ways of defining worth, etc.) You often feel as if you are “not enough” and don’t measure up to those around you You have trouble expressing, processing, or regulating emotion, perhaps due to past contexts in which you didn’t feel safe to do so You notice that you are sometimes really mean to yourself You find yourself pushing away the “hard stuff” You want to build self-awareness to understand your inner world on a deeper level As someone who grew up closeted in an extremely religious household, I get what it’s like to feel like you don’t belong or like you need to push away parts of yourself. I can never fully understand what exactly it’s like to be you, but I can connect with you through the shared experience of being a person who’s trying their best to figure out who the hell they are. I want you to know that all parts of you are important, and we can work together to figure out how they have historically functioned to protect you, and perhaps how they can function differently to protect you in the present. I can truly say that I love my job. It’s so beautiful to be able to share in both the joys and sorrows with a client, holding some of those emotions for them when we’re in the room together. I feel very lucky to witness the changes clients make over time, as they learn more about their inherent worth and ability to weather the storms that life inevitably brings. I can’t make the rain go away, but I can help you find some boots and an umbrella.

College can be exciting, overwhelming, and everything in between. Whether you’re figuring out who you are, navigating friendships or relationships, managing anxiety or depression, dealing with stress, or feeling stuck in patterns that no longer serve you, I offer a warm, supportive space where you don’t have to have it all figured out. I believe therapy should feel collaborative, compassionate, and tailored to you. Together, we’ll explore the thoughts, emotions, and experiences that may be getting in the way of feeling more grounded, connected, and confident. My approach combines practical coping skills with opportunities for deeper self-understanding, helping you build self-compassion and create meaningful change. Young adulthood comes with a lot of transitions such as starting college, exploring identity, balancing academics and relationships, preparing for life after graduation, or simply trying to keep up with everything on your plate. Therapy can be a place to slow down, process what you’re going through, and reconnect with what matters most to you. You don’t have to navigate it all on your own. Wherever you are in your journey, I’d be honored to support your growth, healing, and the life you’re creating for yourself.

Please visit my profile to learn more about my services.

Please visit my profile to learn more about my services.

College can be an exciting and rewarding time, but it also comes with high expectations, stress, and many transitions along the way. From adjusting to campus life and building independence to navigating relationships, academics, and eventually entering the career world, each stage can bring its own challenges. When things feel overwhelming, talking with a therapist can provide support in exploring strategies to manage stress, build healthy boundaries, and navigate these transitions with greater confidence from both on campus and beyond.

College comes with a lot to juggle, including classes, deadlines, relationships, and figuring out what comes next. If ADHD or OCD is making it harder to manage it all, therapy can help. As a therapist specializing in ADHD and OCD, I help college students better understand their patterns, build practical tools, and feel more confident navigating college life. I utilize Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), EMDR, and ERP, tailoring the therapeutic approach to best fit your needs, strengths, and goals. Together, we can find the tools and approach that work best for you and help you move toward the goals you want to achieve.

College life can bring a lot to manage, from academics and deadlines to balancing responsibilities and staying organized. As a therapist specializing in ADHD and executive functioning, I help college students develop practical skills and strategies to improve organization, time management, focus, and follow-through. I also work with anxiety, including a background in sports performance anxiety, helping students and athletes build confidence, manage pressure, and perform at their best.

Fine Tune Psychiatry accepts many commercial insurances, including: Aetna/CVS, IBX, Highmark, United Healthcare/ Optum, Horizon BCBS of NJ, Oscar, OneNetPPO and more. Rittenhouse Psychiatric is fee-for-service, but has specialists in neuropsychological evaluations, eating disorders and other areas of psychiatry. We have about 40 providers (psychiatrists and psychiatric nurse practitioners) who are board certified and experts within the mental health field, within our networks. We offer child, adolescent and adult psychiatry at both locations. The practice's founder, Dr. Chris Pagnani, is an Instructor at Johns Hopkins Hospital, supervisor at Jefferson Hospital, serves on the board of uplift: the center for grieving children (which provides free grief therapy to predominantly inner-city children who have lost a parent to violence, overdose, natural causes and incarceration, and he maintains a private practice seeing patients throughout the states he's licensed.

Dean Psychological & Well-Being Associates is a group practice outside Pittsburgh offering therapy and psychological testing for college students and young adults. We are currently accepting new students, with immediate openings. Therapy is available on video anywhere in Pennsylvania, or in person at our Wexford office. We also have some available clinicians in WV and PsyPact states for telehealth. We work with anxiety and panic, OCD, phobias, depression, perfectionism, family pressure, identity, relationships, and adjusting to life with a chronic illness. Grief and loss are a particular strength here. Our clinical director, Dr. Angela Dean, is a Fellow in Thanatology, which is a rare specialization in bereavement and end-of-life work. Testing is done in person and covers ADHD, Autism, learning differences as well as other concerns. You get a written report with recommendations you can bring to your disability services office, and the option to continue with a therapist if appropriate. Several clinicians are working toward licensure under supervision and often have shorter waits. We’re an outpatient practice, best suited to students who are safe and stable enough for weekly or biweekly work. If you’re in crisis, call or text 988, go to the nearest emergency room, or contact your campus counseling center. Call (724) 271-8503 or visit deanpwa.com and get started today!

I work well with students who are functioning on the outside and struggling underneath. You're turning things in, you're showing up, and nobody around you would guess how much effort that costs. The anxiety runs constantly in the background. Or you're stuck in loops, checking, redoing, needing something to feel right before you can move on, and you've never said it out loud to anyone because it sounds strange. I also see students who have reorganized their lives around avoiding one or more things: heights, a needle, a flight, an elevator, driving, insects, throwing up, speaking in front of people. It's manageable until it isn't, and then it starts costing you. And I work with students who have spent years wondering why school takes them so much longer than it seems to take everyone else. I do testing for ADHD and learning differences, which means an actual answer instead of another semester of guessing. Therapy is on video across Pennsylvania or in person in Wexford. Testing is in person. I'm currently accepting new students.

Most of the students I see come in with a question they've been carrying for years. Why does reading take you three times as long as it seems to take everyone else? Why can you focus for six hours on the thing you care about and not fifteen minutes on the thing that's due? Why did school get harder the moment nobody was structuring your day for you? I do psychological and psychoeducational testing, mostly for ADHD, Autism, Neurodivergence, and learning differences. It's a few sessions of structured tasks, not a quiz you can fail, and at the end you get a written report explaining how your brain actually works, plus recommendations you can take to your disability services office. For a lot of students the relief isn't the accommodations. It's finally having an explanation that isn't "you're not trying hard enough." I also see a smaller number of students for therapy, usually around anxiety, depression, perfectionism, and family expectations. Testing is done in person in Wexford. Initial intake and follow-up appointments can be done online if you are located in Pennsylvania. Therapy is on video across Pennsylvania or in person. I'm currently accepting new students.

Hello! I am Adam Oshnock, a Licensed Professional and Nationally Certified Counselor located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania who is currently accepting new clients with flexible scheduling. I started my work in the mental health field in 2001 and received my license in 2007. I have worked with all populations from age 6 on, but have specialized experience in working with children, adolescents, and families (including marital and divorce). I have additional specialized training for individuals who have experienced trauma and I am certified as a Clinical Trauma Professional Level 2. I am a Certified Clinical Telemental Health professional for those that prefer virtual appointments. I have significant experience in working with athletes at all levels to improve their mental approach to the sport. The first session is always one where an evaluation occurs to determine if therapy is recommended. It is also important during that time that the client identifies that I am a good fit for treatment. The safe and supportive space of the therapeutic relationship is critical to treatment progress. After the assessment we would develop a plan of care and individualized goals. This includes determining individualized interventions for the treatment goals. It is important that we focus on today, learn from our past, and prepare for the future. If you think I might be a good fit for your therapeutic needs I look forward to hearing from you.