About Me
My name is Jason Karageorge, I’m a licensed clinical psychologist who has had a long love affair with the sport of soccer. While always a psychologically oriented thinker, soccer was my first love and the field of psychology was my next. I grew up playing competitive soccer in the Bay Area, on a nationally ranked team, and was able to start all four years playing at the University of Pennsylvania, while pursuing my undergraduate degree in psychology. Somewhere in between, I was fortunate enough to have a tryout for a professional academy in Tilburg, Netherlands. After college, I continued to play as much as my knees allowed, wherever I lived – whether that was in San Francisco’s SFSFL Premier division, or in the streets and parks of NYC, while earning my doctorate at Columbia University.
Over the last 20 years, as a clinical psychologist, I have worked with depression, anxiety, shame, trauma, anger and substance use in community, hospital and private practice settings. At this point, I feel that I have acquired intimate and expansive experience helping clients manage the challenges, wounds, pains and powers that belie and manifest psychologically. My therapeutic approach always involves a person-centered empowerment methodology that aims to build psychological strength while removing the external and internal barriers that stand in the way of mental wellness and fulfillment in life.
My first goal and offering at SoccerPsychology maintains an important piece of the clinical goals stated above. This service offers soccer players a diverse set of psychologically based mind/body techniques and concepts to remove the internal and external barriers that limit their experience of the game. This treatment approach integrates Clinical Psychology, Science, Sports Psychology, and Buddhist Principles to optimize an athlete’s potential on the field. I first implemented some of these techniques while coaching at a grassroots level and then did so at a competitive youth level. Here, I immediately saw how cognitive and somatic skills, such as visualization, mindfulness, grounding, and diaphragmatic breathing, could benefit athletes on and off the soccer field – even at 7 years old. Since this experience, I have researched and integrated additional scientific methodologies and eastern based principles to reduce pressure, mitigate fear, and build belief in self, on and off the field.
My secondary offering or service through SoccerPsychology more directly reflects my clinical experience and training by addressing underlying psychological injuries, conditions, and pains that a soccer player may carry around in life and on the field. I firmly believe that, in certain cases, we can only achieve a greater degree of wholeness, peace and confidence by addressing intrapsychic wounds and the fragile interplay of mental, physical and spiritual health. Unlike a mental coach or performance trainer, I’m here to take care of these deeper psychological needs and am trained to do so. Some aspects of this approach may also be particularly useful when a player is recovering from injury and facing psychological challenges while doing so.
The reasons I do not want to neglect the deeper psychological needs or wounds of the player are practical and personal. Not everyone would benefit from the combined approach of addressing deeper anxieties and psychological injuries while learning how to improve their experience on the soccer field. I just know that I, and many others, could have benefited from this two-pronged approach. There is an interplay between our deeper psychological needs and how we can engage the game of soccer, but this combined approach is not necessary for everyone. You decide what best fits you. Sometimes our intrapsychic space requires more specific clinical attention, in addition to maintaining mental strength and managing the basic psychological fears and pressures of a game.
If you aren’t sure what might benefit you most, we can have a free consultation to explore that. My goal is to meet you where you are at and safely address your playing and personal needs in a balanced, practical and therapeutic manner. I will pay special attention to how to best approach your healing and performance needs. This will start with immediate assessments that aim to optimize your time and pursuits of goals in life and on the soccer field. It may end with us seeing it all come together on both fields!