Sports & Performance Therapy
Trauma-informed therapy for athletes, high performers, and their partners navigating pressure, burnout, anxiety, trauma, and emotional stress.
Athletes and high-performing individuals are often expected to stay mentally tough, push through stress, and continue performing regardless of what is happening emotionally behind the scenes. While resilience can be a strength, constantly operating under pressure can impact confidence, emotional regulation, relationships, nervous system functioning, and overall well-being.
Connections Counseling provides therapy for individuals navigating high-pressure environments using Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), EMDR, and Brainspotting to support emotional resilience, nervous system regulation, trauma healing, and sustainable performance both on and off the field.
Mental Health Beyond Performance
High-performing individuals often spend years functioning in survival mode while appearing successful from the outside. Many athletes, performers, and high achievers struggle silently with anxiety, perfectionism, burnout, emotional overwhelm, fear of failure, or difficulty slowing down mentally and emotionally.
Therapy can help clients better understand how stress, trauma, chronic pressure, and nervous system overload may impact confidence, relationships, emotional regulation, performance consistency, and overall mental health. The goal is not simply symptom management, but helping clients feel more grounded, emotionally connected, resilient, and regulated long-term.
Who I Work With:
Athletes:
Support for athletes navigating pressure, anxiety, burnout, injury recovery, confidence struggles, and emotional stress on and off the field.
-
Support for athletes navigating pressure, anxiety, burnout, injury recovery, confidence struggles, and emotional stress on and off the field.
-
Therapy for entrepreneurs, executives, performers, first responders, and driven individuals managing stress, perfectionism, trauma, and nervous system overwhelm.
-
Description text goes here
Performance & Pressure:
Performance pressure
Fear of failure
Confidence struggles
Performance blocks
Perfectionism
Overthinking
High Performers:
Therapy for entrepreneurs, executives, performers, first responders, and driven individuals managing stress, perfectionism, trauma, and nervous system overwhelm.
Mental Health & Nervous System:
Anxiety
Burnout
Emotional exhaustion
Panic symptoms
Nervous system overwhelm
Chronic stress
Partners & Spouses:
Support for spouses and partners of athletes and high performers navigating relationship strain, transitions, emotional disconnection, and high-pressure lifestyles.
Common Areas Addressed in Therapy:
Relationships & Identity:
Relationship stress
Emotional disconnection
Injury recovery
Identity struggles
Transitions
Unresolved trauma
Therapy Beyond Traditional Talk Therapy
Many high performers understand things logically but still feel emotionally stuck, overwhelmed, anxious, burnt out, or disconnected. Connections Counseling integrates trauma-informed and nervous system-focused approaches including EMDR and Brainspotting to help clients process experiences at a deeper level while building healthier emotional, relational, and performance patterns.
Therapy focuses on both practical coping strategies and deeper emotional healing to help clients move beyond survival mode and develop more sustainable ways of navigating pressure, stress, and life transitions.
CBT for High Performers
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) helps clients better understand the connection between thoughts, emotions, behaviors, and performance patterns. Therapy may support individuals struggling with perfectionism, overthinking, negative self-talk, emotional overwhelm, fear of mistakes, or chronic self-pressure. CBT can help strengthen emotional awareness, confidence, stress management, communication, and healthier coping strategies while still honoring ambition and personal goals.
EMDR for Trauma & Performance Pressure
EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) is an evidence-based trauma therapy designed to help the brain process unresolved or distressing experiences that may still be impacting present-day functioning. For athletes and high performers, this may include injuries, chronic criticism, emotionally invalidating environments, panic symptoms, burnout, shame-based experiences, or unresolved trauma impacting confidence and emotional regulation.
EMDR can help clients reduce emotional intensity while strengthening resilience, confidence, nervous system stabilization, and more adaptive beliefs about themselves and their capabilities.
Brainspotting & Nervous System Regulation
Brainspotting is a brain-body therapy approach designed to access deeper emotional and nervous system processing. Many athletes and high performers appreciate Brainspotting because it works beyond traditional talk therapy and focuses directly on the body’s stress and survival responses.
Brainspotting may support emotional processing, nervous system regulation, burnout recovery, performance blocks, trauma healing, confidence, emotional resilience, and chronic stress recovery. This approach can be especially helpful for individuals who feel stuck despite understanding things logically.
Supporting Athlete Partners & Relationships
High-performance lifestyles can place significant strain on relationships and family systems. Demanding schedules, emotional exhaustion, injuries, travel, pressure to perform, and chronic stress can all impact emotional connection, communication, and relationship health.
Connections Counseling also works with spouses and partners of athletes and high-performing individuals navigating relationship stress, burnout, anxiety, emotional overwhelm, attachment wounds, and the unique pressures that can come with performance-driven environments.
Therapy can help individuals strengthen emotional awareness, communication, nervous system regulation, and healthier relationship patterns.
Workshops & Community Collaboration
Connections Counseling is open to collaborating with athletic organizations, schools, teams, coaches, and community programs throughout Las Vegas and Nevada. Brittany Katz, LCSW, is passionate about increasing awareness surrounding athlete mental health, nervous system regulation, burnout prevention, emotional resilience, and trauma-informed care within high-pressure environments.
Potential collaborations may include athlete mental health workshops, stress management education, nervous system regulation education, trauma-informed presentations, burnout prevention, and wellness-focused discussions for athletes, coaches, parents, and organizations.
Ready to train your mind as well as your body? Connections Counseling offers free 15 minute phone consultations to see if we would be a good fit.