Therapists for college students near Cambridge, MA

Dr. Shelby Ortega is a clinical psychologist serving the North Shore and Metro Boston areas via Cambridge and Salem office locations. My approach is one characterized by warmth, humor, and the welcoming of diverse experiences, identities, and perspectives. I believe in tailoring the treatment to the unique needs of my clients and providing a safe space that is equally supportive and challenging. I offer individual psychotherapy for adolescents and adults, as well as couples therapy, clinical supervision, and consultation services. I enjoy working with people from all walks of life, and make every effort to help those I work with feel welcomed, engaged, supported, and respected. I work to provide a safe therapeutic frame that is inclusive of social and cultural context, and therefore, welcome discussions of issues related to oppression, privilege, and of course, intersectionality of complex identity statuses. My private practice work is enriched by my academic scholarship and teaching experiences. I believe this work is an asset to my role as a practitioner and I work to extend this benefit to the patients I serve. My specific interests and areas of expertise include the following: Anxiety, Depression and Mood Disorders Relationship and Intimacy Difficulties Identity Exploration Recovery from Trauma and Loss I have extensive training in multicultural mental health, identity development, adult attachment relationships and intimacy, and have also completed two fellowships in psychodynamic psychotherapy at Harvard Medical School. Presently, I serve as a Teaching Associate in the Department of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, a Psychological and Educational Consultant with Jernigan & Associates, LLC, and as an Advisory Board Member for the Psychology Department at Regis College.

Hi there. I have been working as a therapist for about 9 years and I also work at AANE, a nonprofit that supports neurodivergent folks. I specialize in working with Autistic young adults, and I am particularly interested in helping all people navigate relationship issues, anxiety and struggles around self-acceptance, shame and perfectionism. I'm trained in DBT and that approach shapes my work with my clients and also my own life :) I know the process of looking for a therapist can be daunting and draining. Finding a good fit is important. Don't hesitate to reach out with questions!

My approach to therapy is collaborative, positive and solution-focused, resilience approach, with a focus on overcoming negative experiences and beliefs through a combination of insight into your issues and practical strategies that will help dealing more effectively with issues in your life. I work with individuals who are experiencing anxiety, depression, dealing with life stressors. I specialize in working with people who have experienced various forms of trauma. Currently, I am a senior clinical staff at the University Counseling and Mental Health Service. I particularly enjoy working on issues related to social and cultural adjustment, diversity, intersectionality, and inclusion.

Dr. Kazuko Montgomery earned her doctorate in Clinical Psychology from the Antioch University New England. She also holds a Master of Arts in Clinical Psychology from the Saint Michael’s College. She has extensive experience working with diverse populations, as an individual and family psychotherapist and conducting neuropsychological, cognitive, and psychological assessments. She provides counseling for depression, anxiety, and ADHD and its related executive function challenges. Dr. Montgomery’s training includes University of Vermont counseling center. She integrates many theories and approaches in order to meet the unique needs of her clients, including but not limited, cognitive behavioral therapy, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, and executive function coaching among others. Dr. Montgomery was born and raised in Japan and understands the struggles and impacts of immigration/multicultural/social adjustment issues.

Please visit my profile to learn more about my services.

We go through life trying to figure out who we are and whether we can be accepted by family, co-workers, and friends. You learned strategies to show or hide certain parts of yourself to survive after experiencing hurt or rejection, pretending to be "okay" when others ask you how you are feeling to not burden them, but numb on the inside with anxiety or loneliness. Despite the desire to break out of the shell and be happy, life continues to be hard, especially when you look to others and seeing them being happy. And that is why you come to therapy: Because you want life to be meaningful and fulfilling! Therapy will not be simply talking, but a space where we will explore and mend parts of yourself that you love and parts that you avoid. The process may be challenging as I help you rediscover the things you have "swept under the rug" through questions and emotions, but also rewarding as you hopefully come to see yourself in a new light. I will provide a space for you to be you, whoever that may be so that you can look in the mirror and see yourself as deserving of love and happiness. Gamer? Great! Kinks? Awesome! Anime? That's my jam, too! If you are ready to take that courageous step again, please contact me for a 15-minute consultation on what you want in therapy and next steps.

People seek psychotherapy for different reasons. You may want to address symptoms of depression, anxiety, or low self-esteem, feelings of distress, vulnerability, or isolation. You may be searching for greater meaning, connection, authenticity, and empowerment in your daily interactions. Therapy can help reveal and change patterns that inhibit or undermine living the life you desire. In a safe and supportive therapeutic relationship, we can create conditions for growth, challenge ways of seeing, process painful experiences, and increase your awareness and acceptance of different parts of yourself. I take a relational therapeutic approach and integrate methods that promote insight, emotional awareness, and motivation for behavioral change. Through my training and education at Harvard and Boston Universities, I developed expertise in treating anxiety disorders, trauma and loss, and in helping people identify and strengthen their sources of resilience. It can be an uncomfortable endeavor to start therapy for the first time or again. Building comfort and trust in relationship is one of the first things you and I would work on together. I welcome your questions and input from the start and throughout the process. Please feel free to get in touch.

My expertise is working with college students as I've worked at MIT for 22 and a half years at the MIT MH Counseling Service. Have worked with students from the US and all over the worlds on a variety of issues including depression, anxiety, academic challenges, sexual identity, cultural adjustment and relationships issues.

My approach to psychotherapy is primarily relational and psychodynamic, guided by the concept that healing and change happen in relationship. I aim to create a containing environment where we can be compassionately curious about how your past experiences inform your present. My work incorporates Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Internal Family Systems (IFS), Liberation Health Model, and mindfulness-based interventions to help meet clients’ unique and wide-ranging needs. I provide a supportive, affirming space for clients’ diverse intersecting identities and experiences (e.g., race, immigration status, gender, sexuality). I provide psychotherapy to adults of all ages and have experience helping clients navigate anxiety, depression, identity exploration, life transitions, grief and loss, shame, trauma, and relational stressors. I also have expertise supporting clients through the challenges of college, graduate school, postgraduate life, and emerging adulthood. Before arriving at CAS, I completed a postgraduate fellowship in psychodynamic psychotherapy at Cambridge Health Alliance. I also worked in university, medical, and community-based mental health services in academic counseling, peer education, and clinical research.

I provide individual therapy and couples counseling for adults struggling with a wide range of issues. My areas of expertise include mood dysregulation, depression, anxiety, relationship problems, life transitions, identity issues, college counseling, and trauma/PTSD. Overall, I view therapy as a collaborative relationship between client and therapist in which we work together towards client self-knowledge, self-acceptance, and healing. I work from a flexible, integrative approach, drawing on aspects of psychodynamic, cognitive-behavioral, and relational modalities, depending on each client's particular needs. My style is empathetic, respectful, and curious. I have specialized training in Prolonged Exposure therapy for PTSD, cross-cultural therapy, working with veterans, and working with asylum-seekers/refugees.

Ana welcomes students ages 18 and older of all backgrounds and all identities including LGBTQIA+ to feel supported in individual therapy. She uses a trauma-informed approach and specializes in using mindfulness, meditation, yoga, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) and Eye Movement Desensitization & Reprocessing (EMDR). Ana creates a sacred space in therapy for people to be seen and heard for who they truly are. You'll be greeted with respect, empathy and support. Whether you are coping with anxiety, depression or sleep issues, perhaps going through a relationship transition or want to set boundaries with a loved one, or are learning better self care strategies, there is always help and hope available. Ana Baumgart Schreck trained at Boston University in 2013 to become a social worker and therapist.

Are you struggling with anxiety, depression, trauma, or family conflict? You don’t have to face it alone. I specialize in helping adults work through overwhelming emotions, painful family dynamics, and the lasting effects of difficult or abusive relationships. Together, we process complex trauma, build healthier boundaries, and foster resilience, healing, and growth. I’m a licensed Mental Health Counselor in Massachusetts with over 10 years of experience. As a bilingual therapist (English & Spanish), I value the role that culture, identity, and lived experience play in shaping your mental health journey. My care is warm, collaborative, and culturally responsive, always tailored to your unique needs and goals. My approach is integrative, drawing from psychodynamic therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), trauma-informed care, mindfulness-based practices, solution-focused therapy, narrative therapy, and attachment-based therapy. This flexibility allows us to use the approaches and strategies that best fit your circumstances. I am in-network with BCBS, Aetna, Cigna/Evernorth, Tufts, and Optum. Let’s connect. I offer a free 15-minute consultation so you can share your needs, ask questions, and see if we’re a good fit.

** Telehealth and In-Person appointments.** We all long for our experiences, feelings, and needs to be seen, recognized, and honored. I bring to our work deep respect for your concerns and suffering. I place the therapeutic relationship at the heart of our work together which I approach with curiosity and empathy. I am most interested in what your unique experience is, and I aim to listen deeply on our road toward understanding. A safe-enough space will help us to transform your patterns of experience that interfere with your ability to be compassionate with yourself, to build meaningful relationships, and to work and play creatively, in other words, to live a fulfilling life. I am humbled by the complexity of human existence and feel honored to work with individuals from different racial and cultural backgrounds, sexual and gender identities, as well as spiritual and religious affiliations. In addition to my private practice, I am an Instructor in Psychology at Harvard Medical School (part-time) and supervise psychology interns and psychiatrist fellows. I served as the co-chair of the American Psychological Association’s (APA) Society for Psychoanalysis and Psychoanalytic Psychology Graduate Student Committee helping young clinicians explore and develop their professional identities.

Whatever it is that has brought you here, welcome! I work with folks facing a range of issues, with a specialty in trauma, anxiety, family conflict, LGBTQIA+ identity, and relationship issues. If you experience stress from caring for/about others and our environment, I am ready to support you. I am a climate-aware therapist, meaning I recognize climate grief and eco-anxiety as legitimate responses to a global crisis and important areas of attention in therapy to help you better navigate our changing world. In therapy, I attend to ways in which the ideas, actions and policies in our communities, cultures and families can be sources of both pain and resilience. I am committed to providing queer- and LGBTQIA+ affirming care, and I believe in the collaborative exploration of all intersections of identity that feel important to you. My experience informs my work. My career in international humanitarian aid and gender-based violence lends a unique perspective to trauma-informed care. Trained in Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, I bring neuroscience and the mind-body connection into therapy. Our work will explore how the body holds past experiences and how it can help you heal. I also support people in therapeutically integrating psychedelic experiences. I look forward to getting started!

I believe therapy is most meaningful when it feels deeply human, collaborative, and emotionally honest. Many of the people I work with are thoughtful, capable, and deeply insightful, yet still find themselves caught in recurring patterns of anxiety, self-criticism, overwhelm, or disconnection from themselves. My approach is grounded in relational, psychodynamic, and somatic perspectives, with attention to the ways past experiences continue to shape our emotions, relationships, and sense of self. Together, we explore not only what you are feeling, but the patterns and protections that may once have helped you cope. I view therapy as an active relationship — one where we can slow down, stay curious, and make space for parts of your experience that may feel difficult to name or understand. My style is warm, engaged, and collaborative, while also helping clients deepen insight and reconnect with themselves more fully. I often work with concerns related to anxiety, trauma, perfectionism, identity development, life transitions, and relationship difficulties. Above all, I strive to create a space where you feel genuinely seen — not rushed, judged, or dismissed. I believe meaningful and lasting change emerges through the safety of a real therapeutic relationship.

Life hurts. It just does. We all go through tough times at some point. Tragedy and hardship hit unannounced. These events have a lasting impact - even subtle ones - especially if they took place during our formative years. They can leave us on high alert, isolated, stressed out, hating ourselves, experiencing nightmares, not being able to feel joy, or to concentrate. If you have experienced any kind of trauma, be it a massive event that you didn't recover from, the repeated attrition of abuse, or the subtle and insidious wounding of emotional neglect, there is hope. I'm a trauma-informed mental health counselor and energy psychology practitioner. I specialize in trauma treatment and have gathered an eclectic collection of tools. Not everything works for everyone, so I pride myself in always widening my knowledge of counseling interventions and incorporating holistic, somatic, and mindbody methodologies as well. As a human being I have had many opportunities to use my healing tools. I know what it's like to be deeply hurt, defeated, anxious beyond belief, trapped in my own skin, struggling to even function, going through life numb and on autopilot because everything feels so bad. But most importantly, I know how to overcome and transcend the pain. Let me show you.

Marisa Anderson is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor who has recently started work at Crooked Tree after many years of experience working with adolescents and adults in outpatient agencies within the Boston area. In her work with clients, Marisa incorporates both strength-based and cognitive behavioral therapies to help facilitate and support a better sense of self, healthy relationships, and stress management skills. Currently, Marisa also works as a school clinician at Beacon High School in Watertown. Marisa received her Master’s degree in Clinical Mental Health Counseling from Lesley University.

If you’ve been finding yourself stuck in old patterns that you cannot change, perhaps struggling with feelings of inadequacy or fear of failure, you’ve come to the right place.  The constant doubting and shaming of a strong inner critic can prevent us from entering new relationships, pursuing our interests and goals, and convince us that it’s not safe to allow anyone to get to know our true selves. Choosing to confront these themes in therapy takes courage and vulnerability, and represents the first step in a decision to prioritize your mental health. I will work with you to explore the themes that brought you to therapy, and develop the self-compassion to show up more authentically in your life.  My therapeutic style is compassionate, sometimes humorous, and client-led. I center my work around Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and the Internal Family Systems (IFS) approach, and I often pull from relational or psychodynamic modalities as well. I work with adolescents and adults of all backgrounds, and I specialize in working with those who identify as athletes or performers (musicians, actors, dancers, etc.) If you’re interested in starting therapy to address some of those old patterns or painful feelings, I hope you’ll take the time to consider if we would work well together.

Please visit my profile to learn more about my services.

When people come to treatment with problems, it is important to remember that they are trying to cope with them in the best way they can. With that in mind, I offer a reflective and engaging partnership with my clients, working toward the goal of helping them to be autonomous, authentic and compassionate in a world that can be extremely stressful. Although my work is solidly grounded in psychodynamic, cognitive/learning, and systems theories, my approach is client-centered, practical and strengths-based. I bring honesty, warmth, and humor to the therapy relationship. I am LGBTQ affirmative and invested in doing cross-cultural therapy which is culturally sensitive. I have a dog, Bracket, who works with me, and I have been doing AAT since 2002. There is a growing body of research which suggests that AAT (Animal-Assisted Therapy) can be helpful with a range of diagnoses, including Depression, PTSD, and Autistic Spectrum. Many therapists know little about online games such as World of Warcraft and Second Life. They may dismiss it as unimportant, or assume it is a problem. I am a gamer-affirmative therapist, meaning I’m more interested in understanding your in-world experience and activity than pathologizing it.