Student-athlete mental health
Supporting athletes navigating performance pressure, confidence, injury, burnout, team dynamics, identity, transitions, and the emotional demands of balancing sport with life.
Counselor-in-training · Athlete advocate
Supporting the person beyond the performance.
Arianna B. Nixon
Clinical Mental Health Counseling Graduate Student · Former NCAA Division III Dual-Sport Goalkeeper · Turner Syndrome Advocate
I am preparing for a career in counseling rooted in empathy, whole-person wellness, collaboration, and respect for each client’s lived experience. My interests include student-athlete mental health, women’s health, identity, resilience, life transitions, and accessible telehealth support.
Seeking a supervised clinical mental health counseling internship and aligned entry-level opportunities
Arianna B. Nixon
Counselor-in-training · Athlete advocate · Turner syndrome advocate
About me
Empathy shaped by education, athletics, service, and lived experience.
I earned my Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from Eastern Mennonite University, where I competed as a goalkeeper in both field hockey and lacrosse. I am completing graduate preparation in Clinical Mental Health Counseling at Walden University, with a focus on telehealth counseling, private practice, and supervision.
My experience as a student-athlete taught me how much can exist behind an outwardly composed performance: pressure, fear of failure, injury concerns, changing roles, perfectionism, team expectations, academic demands, and the challenge of maintaining an identity beyond sport. Those experiences help me approach athletes with curiosity rather than assumptions.
My lived experience with Turner syndrome also informs my commitment to women’s health, self-advocacy, and care that recognizes the emotional impact of complex medical experiences. I want girls and women to feel heard, respected, and supported as whole people—not reduced to a diagnosis, a body, a role, or a statistic.
Developing counseling focus
Areas I hope to serve and continue studying.
These are developing interests within supervised graduate training, not claims of independent specialization or licensure.
Women and girls
Creating affirming space for self-esteem, relationships, body image, health advocacy, role expectations, confidence, and the experiences that shape how women understand themselves.
Life transitions and identity
Helping clients make meaning during graduation, career changes, retirement from sport, changing family roles, new diagnoses, emerging adulthood, and other seasons of uncertainty.
Resilience and practical coping
Building emotional awareness, communication, self-compassion, flexible thinking, healthy routines, grounding skills, and realistic strategies that fit a client’s actual life.
Sports mental health
The athlete is always more than the stat line.
“High performance and human vulnerability can exist at the same time.”
Athletes are often praised for discipline, toughness, and composure, but those same expectations can make it harder to admit fear, fatigue, loneliness, pain, or uncertainty. Counseling can provide a confidential space to separate self-worth from outcomes and develop tools that support both well-being and sustainable performance.
As a former collegiate goalkeeper, I understand the mental demands of a position where mistakes feel visible, leadership often requires constant communication, and staying present matters after every goal, save, win, or loss.
Performance anxiety
Perfectionism
Injury adjustment
Confidence
Team roles
Burnout
Athletic identity
Retirement from sport
Turner syndrome advocacy
Helping girls and women feel informed, believed, and fully seen.
Advocacy is not a replacement for medical care. It is a commitment to dignity, communication, access, community, and emotional support throughout care.
Lived experience, thoughtfully shared
My personal journey with Turner syndrome gives me a deep respect for the courage required to live with ongoing appointments, uncertainty, medical language, and decisions that can affect identity and daily life.
Emotional health belongs in health care
Medical experiences can shape confidence, trust, body image, relationships, grief, and the way a person understands the future. Emotional support should be part of whole-person care.
Self-advocacy and voice
Girls and women deserve understandable information, room to ask questions, support in communicating their needs, and care teams that listen without dismissing their concerns.
Community and possibility
A diagnosis is one part of a life. Advocacy can connect people to community, affirm different paths to adulthood and family, and make room for joy, ambition, sport, education, and leadership.
Education and experience
Prepared through counseling exposure, youth leadership, athletics, and service.
Graduate education
M.S. Clinical Mental Health Counseling · Walden University
Graduate focus in telehealth counseling, private practice, and supervision. Counseling coursework has included person-centered, cognitive behavioral, feminist, narrative, existential, and solution-focused perspectives.
Behavioral health
Intern · Gemeinschaft Home
Contributed to curriculum development, counseling support, substance-use programming, group work, individual support, research, grant writing, publication design, website and social media work, tutoring, life-skills instruction, and employment-readiness workshops.
Undergraduate
B.A. Psychology · Eastern Mennonite University
Completed psychology study while competing as a dual-sport collegiate goalkeeper. Co-presented an academic project titled Organized Sports and Mental Health.
Youth and community
Mentorship, coaching, arts camps, and service
Supported children through community arts programs, progressive counseling responsibilities, co-teaching, supervision, youth sports coaching, and faith-based service. Additional customer-facing work strengthened communication, adaptability, and teamwork.
Selected academic interest
Organized Sports and Mental Health
Psychology research shaped by the student-athlete experience
Arianna co-presented this project during Eastern Mennonite University’s 2023 Academic and Creative Excellence Festival. The project explored how participation in organized sports may relate to mental well-being and reflected an interest that continues into her graduate counseling work.
Internship profile
Seeking a supervised setting where learning and service grow together.
Based in Charlottesville, Virginia, Arianna is especially interested in supervised clinical counseling internships and aligned entry-level mental health, student-athlete wellness, women’s health, program-support, and advocacy opportunities serving adolescents, emerging adults, athletes, women, families, or clients navigating health-related and life-transition concerns.
What I bring
- Graduate counseling preparation with an empathetic, person-centered foundation
- Previous exposure to individual support, group facilitation, curriculum, and community reentry services
- Firsthand understanding of collegiate athletics, team culture, pressure, and transition
- Experience with youth mentorship, co-teaching, coaching, life-skills education, and employment workshops
- Strong communication, teamwork, adaptability, and comfort in fast-paced environments
- CPR/First Aid certification listed on current résumé
What I hope to learn
- Ethical and culturally responsive assessment, documentation, treatment planning, and case conceptualization
- Individual and group counseling under consistent, thoughtful clinical supervision
- Trauma-informed and developmentally responsive practice
- Collaboration with families, schools, athletic staff, medical providers, and community resources
- Telehealth best practices and continuity of care
- How to translate theory into grounded, compassionate work with real clients
Connect
Let’s talk about a supervised internship opportunity.
I welcome conversations about supervised counseling internships and aligned entry-level opportunities with counseling practices, community agencies, schools, college wellness programs, health organizations, women’s mental health initiatives, Turner syndrome organizations, and sport-focused programs.