Services
Sports Performance & Athlete Groups
Being an athlete comes with a different kind of pressure. There’s the weight of performance, and the fear of a bad game, a slow start, or a mistake in front of a crowd. There’s the identity wrapped up in a sport, and the disorientation that comes when injury, a cut, or a coaching change threatens to take it away. And there’s the reality that most young and non-elite athletes never get access to the kind of mental performance support that’s now standard at the professional level. Counseling gives athletes a confidential space to work through what’s actually going on beneath the performance: anxiety before competition, the mental side of returning from injury, burnout, perfectionism, difficult team or coach dynamics, and the pressure to perform that can start to overshadow why they loved the sport in the first place.
Group Counseling for Sports Performance & Athletes?
Group counseling takes that same work and puts it in a room with other athletes carrying the same weight. Sports culture often teaches athletes to internalize pressure alone: to push through, stay quiet, and never show a crack. Groups intentionally interrupt that pattern. Hearing a teammate name the same fear of failure, postgame spiral, or struggle to separate self-worth from performance is often the moment we realize we were never actually alone in it. Sessions combine structured mental skills training, including goal setting, visualization, arousal regulation, self-talk, with real-time peer processing and support, led in a structured, confidential format designed specifically for athletes. It’s a space to practice vulnerability, build trust, and learn that asking for help is part of being a strong competitor, not the opposite of it. This model works well across contexts, whether it’s a group of athletes working through the same competitive pressures together, or navigating injury and recovery with others who understand what that process actually feels like.
General Overview
The benefits of therapy are powerful and life-changing.
- Build mental skills that transfer directly to competition
- Manage performance anxiety and pressure
- Navigate injury and the return-to-play process
- Strengthen self-confidence and self-compassion
- Address identity beyond sport
- Improve focus, emotional regulation, and arousal control
- Break the stigma around mental health support in athletics
Group Counseling
- Peer connection with other athletes facing similar pressures
- Structured skill-building alongside shared processing and normalization
- A space to practice vulnerability and build trust with teammates/peers
- Groups available for both performance-focused athletes and those navigating injury recovery, across youth, collegiate, and recreational levels
To learn more about Dylan’s approach to athlete mental performance, visit Moenninghoff Performance.