Who I Help · Young Adults
Therapy for Young Adults
The years right after school end are sold as a launch. For a lot of people they feel closer to a stall: a first apartment, a job that does not match the plan, a relationship that is either too serious too fast or nowhere at all, and a running bill of decisions nobody prepared you to make alone.
60-Minute Sessions · $200 · In Person or Telehealth in Utah
The Gap
Between the Plan and the Reality
Somewhere around the mid-twenties, the timeline most young adults were handed (graduate, get a job you love, find a partner, feel settled by a certain age) collides with an actual life that rarely arrives on schedule. The gap between what you expected to feel by now and what you actually feel can produce a specific, quiet kind of shame: the sense that everyone else received instructions you missed.
That gap shows up as different presenting problems depending on the person. For some it is depression that looks like low motivation and long stretches of nothing. For others it is anxiety that shows up as constant comparison, checking what peers are doing and measuring against it. For others it is simply exhaustion from performing a version of adulthood that has not yet started to feel true.
What Comes Up
Relationships, Money, and the People Who Raised You
First serious relationships tend to arrive during this stretch, often before someone has had much practice being an equal partner rather than a child or a student. Old patterns from a family of origin (conflict avoidance, over-functioning, difficulty asking for what you need) get tested for the first time against someone who is not obligated to stay.
Money and independence carry their own weight, whether that means the anxiety of a first real budget, the discomfort of still needing help from parents, or guilt about accepting that help at all. And the relationship with parents itself is usually being renegotiated in the background, sometimes explicitly and sometimes as an undercurrent in every other decision: whose voice gets the final say now, and what happens when it disagrees with your own.
Underneath much of it sits decision paralysis: the sense that any choice about a job, a city, or a relationship might be the wrong one, which makes it tempting to make no choice at all. Therapy at this stage often has less to do with fixing a single symptom and more to do with building a decision-making process you can actually trust.
The Work
Building a Life That Is Actually Yours
Early sessions usually map the specific pressures at play, which expectations are genuinely yours, which were inherited, and where the two have been quietly treated as identical. From there, the work is practical as often as it is reflective: naming what you actually want from a job or a relationship, practicing saying no to a family obligation that no longer fits, or breaking an intimidating decision into a step small enough to take this week.
Where a relationship with a partner or a parent is central to the work, that person can sometimes join for a session or two, though most of this work happens one-on-one. The aim is not a finished, permanent plan, very little at this age stays fixed for long, but a steadier relationship with uncertainty and your own judgment inside it.
Athena is not a prescriber; medication questions belong with a physician or psychiatrist. She does not treat substance abuse, grief, or OCD, and she is licensed in Utah only, seeing clients in person in Salt Lake City or by telehealth anywhere in the state.
Common Questions
Young Adult Therapy Questions
- I don't have a diagnosis, just a feeling of being stuck. Is that enough to start therapy?
- Yes. Decision paralysis, a vague sense of falling behind, or simply not knowing what you want are common and legitimate reasons to start. Therapy does not require a diagnosis to be useful.
- Can my parents be involved if I'm still financially dependent on them?
- Sessions are yours and remain confidential as an adult client. If a parent relationship is part of what you want to work on, that can be addressed in your individual sessions, or in a small number of joint sessions if you both want that and it would help.
- What if the issue is really about my relationship, not just me?
- Individual sessions can absolutely include relationship material. If it becomes clear that joint sessions with a partner would serve the work better, that option is discussed and couples counseling is available separately.
- How much does a session cost and how long does it run?
- Individual sessions are 60 minutes at $200. Select Health, BCBS, UBH and University of Utah Health Plans are accepted, and sessions are available in person in Salt Lake City or by telehealth anywhere in Utah.
Start With the Contact Form
Send the contact form to describe what you are working through, and scheduling follows from there.