Counseling When You’re Anxious About College
You already know that anxiety can look like anger, stress, or perfectionism. Even if you’re “just” anxious about college, it can have a big impact on you.
We work with tons of college students and teens at Compassionate Counseling St. Louis, and we know how important it is to find someone who gets it - who doesn’t minimize your concerns, and who can actually help you manage the anxiety and move forward.
In our last blog, we talked about two big components of our counseling for college anxiety - psychoeducation and relaxation skills building.
This week, we’re talking all about affective expression and cognitive coping. Learn more below!
Affective Expression and Identification
Affect is how you show and experience your emotions, internally and externally. (And external affective expression is why so many teens and college students with anxiety-driven anger get called angry when really they’re just anxious - your face looks angry, but inside you feel that stress).
(Read More in Kelsey's Book: When Anxiety Makes You Angry)
When we work on affective expression, we clue into how we’re feeling on the inside and how we’re showing it on the outside, so that we can tune into our emotional needs and better express them to others - hugely important when you have anxiety about college.
Cognitive Coping Skills for College Anxiety
The fourth huge area we focus on is cognitive coping, meaning figuring out how to deal with the problems you experience by using your thoughts.
Often, our brain jumps to conclusions, like “I know I’m going to be so lonely at college,” or “I’m never going to get good grades, and I’ll be a total failure!” While these thoughts might be true, they might also be false.
Some people say that thoughts can be bad, but rather than labeling thoughts as bad or good, we can just call them thoughts. They’re just there! It’s just your brain making noise. And while the thought may not be the most helpful thing, it doesn’t mean your brain’s unhelpful. Your brain’s just trying to protect you by thinking through those worst case scenarios.
This idea, that thoughts are neither bad nor good, is part of ACT, or Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. It’s useful because it’s a technique that’s all about sitting with thoughts and letting them go by.
So even if you’re noticing a lot of thoughts about college, or noticing a lot of anxious ideas pop into your head, you don’t have to listen and believe them. You can just notice them, and move on with the rest of your day.
YES, that’s probably a little more easily said than done. But that’s where counseling comes in.
St. Louis Counseling for Anxiety
Our therapists are here to help.
All of our therapists specialize in anxiety work, and love working with anxiety across the spectrum - from your classic anxious responses to anxiety that looks more like an anger management issue. And while all of our therapists are trained in assessing for anxiety-driven anger, incorporating CBT, and utilizing Feedback Informed Treatment, our team also gets to bring in their own background and specialty for each client.
Learn more about each of our therapists here, and figure out who feels like the best fit for you.
Anxiety and perfectionism can look and feel a lot of different ways. If you’re dealing with anxiety, or you’re even having trouble just describing what the problem is, reach out!
Our therapists work with kids, teens, and college students age 4 on up, and we’re always happy to set up a call to talk more about how we can help - and if we’re the best fit for what’s going on.
Schedule a call right on our website - we can’t wait to help.
Kelsey Torgerson Dunn, MSW, LCSW is the author of When Anxiety Makes You Angry and owner of Compassionate Counseling St. Louis, where we specialize in anxiety and anger management for kids, teens, and college students. We provide therapy for teens and college students throughout the St. Louis area.
