Anxiety Therapy in Austin for Kids, Teens, and College Students
Free 15-Minute Consultations • Virtual Sessions Across Texas & 42 States
(512) 240-2633You used to be so anxious watching your kid feel sick before school. The mornings have their own rhythm now, the stomachaches, the worry showing up in her body before she even has the words for it. You feel it land in your own chest. Your breath gets shallow. The whole day already feels off-kilter, and it has barely begun. By the time you are buckling her into the car, both of you are running on fumes.
She performs poorly on tests you know she has studied for. You have sat with her. You have quizzed her. You know she knows the material. But something happens between home and that classroom, and the answers slip somewhere just out of reach. The anxiety eats them alive. She comes home flat. You can see it in her shoulders before she even tells you how the day went.
It is not just the tests. It is the other kids too. The hallways, the lunch table, the group projects. You watch her shrink back. You see how badly she wants to do well, how badly she wants to belong, and how much that wanting is costing her.
If your kid is older, in high school or away at college, the picture looks different but the worry is the same. The text messages from her dorm at 1 a.m. The grades that do not match the smart kid you know she is. The quiet during phone calls that used to be lively. You are watching her struggle from further away, and it does not hurt any less.
You lie awake wondering if you are missing something. You love this kid so much it knocks the wind out of you. And no matter how hard you try, you cannot fix this for her.
Underneath the worry, something else is still alive in her. The wanting. The fact that she is still trying. The way she lights up when she gets something right, even when the lighting up is fast and quiet because she does not quite trust it yet.
She is still in there. The bright kid, the funny kid, the kid who cared enough to be nervous in the first place. Anxiety did not erase her. It just got loud.
I'm Kristin, a licensed psychologist and the founder of Little Dove Psychology in Austin, Texas. I work with kids, teens, and college students who are wrestling with anxiety, and the parents who love them. The kind of parents who have already read the books, listened to the podcasts, tried the sticker charts, and who still lay awake at night wondering if they are missing something.
My job is to help young people and their parents build real, practical skills so they can settle in and live a fuller life with the biological cards they have been dealt. As an anxiety therapist in Austin, I see a lot of bright, sensitive kids and college students whose brains run a little hot, and parents who can see the wonderful human underneath all the big feelings.
What makes my approach a little different is the depth of experience I bring to the work. I have sat with some of the toughest cases out there, and I give recommendations you can actually use on a Tuesday night when everything is falling apart. Many parents tell me the shift starts the moment their child stops waiting to feel better and starts taking the reins on her own mental health.
The work is grounded in evidence-based approaches that actually move the needle on anxiety: cognitive behavioral therapy, exposure-based methods, parent coaching, and protocols designed for tough situations like school refusal. None of it is rigid. The science gets shaped to fit the young person in front of me and the family she belongs to. In practice, that usually looks like:
This is not about turning her into a different person. It is about helping the bright, sensitive, funny human you already see come through more often, with less weight on her shoulders.
I work with kids, teens, and college students. Anxiety can show up at any age, and the approach adjusts to fit a six-year-old, a fourteen-year-old, or a twenty-year-old's actual life.
If anxiety is showing up in her body (stomachaches, headaches, trouble sleeping), interfering with school or college, or shrinking her world by making her avoid things she used to enjoy, those are real signals worth taking seriously.
Often yes, and sometimes there is also something physical going on, so it is worth ruling that out with her pediatrician. School-related stomachaches are one of the most common ways anxiety shows up.
Both, and on purpose. For kids and teens, parent coaching is core. For college students, family involvement is on her terms. Some young adults want their parents in the loop, others want the work to be theirs alone. Both are fine.
That is great. If she is 18 or older, we can work together directly. She is the client. Family can be involved in whatever way she chooses, including not at all.
Yes, with the right setup. Virtual sessions work well for many kids, teens, and college students. I offer virtual sessions across Texas and 42 other states, which works especially well for college students away at school.
Little Dove Psychology is a private-pay practice. I am happy to provide a superbill you can submit for possible out-of-network reimbursement.