Teresa Gross, LPC (She/Her)

Meet with Teresa

• In person at the North Austin office, and online appointments.
• Ages 26–80: Adults (26–64) and Older Adults (65+)
• Languages: English.

Payment options: Aetna, Carelon, EHN, Optum, Oscar, Oxford, Private Pay / Self Pay, Sana, and United Healthcare.

Availability and insurance coverage are confirmed before scheduling.

Request an appointment with Teresa

Teresa's focus

• Anxiety
• Grief and Loss
• Meaning & Purpose
• Midlife Transitions
• Relationship Concerns

Professional profile

Teresa began her life’s work as a bereavement intern while earning a Master of Arts in Counseling from St. Edward's University. After graduating in 2015, she transitioned into a dual position where she counseled young adults with autism and directed outreach for an independent living program. Teresa joined the Austin Mindfulness Center in 2017.

Now a full-time mindfulness-based and Enneagram-informed counselor in her eleventh year of practice, Teresa is deeply committed to supporting others on their paths to awakening, healing, and growth. Teresa got her start in marketing roles at Fortune 500 companies, but after 20 years made the bold decision to leave high-tech for the healing arts in response to her soul's clarion call for "something more". For the first several years during this career transition, she worked as a massage therapist and yoga teacher before settling into her most cherished role as a therapist.

As a deeply devoted student of life, Teresa enjoys yoga, meditation, studying The Enneagram, and exploring Mindfulness and Spirituality. In her free time, she values shared experiences with family and friends, spending time in nature, and recharging in calm, quiet spaces.

Welcome

I'm glad you've reached out. Therapy can help you feel happier and more fulfilled, gain new understanding about yourself and others, and navigate life's biggest challenges. It can also lead you to discover your true self and empower you to create more freedom, flow, and vitality in your life. Naturally, I would feel privileged to join you on your journey towards healing and growth.

As your therapist, I can offer a calm presence, listening, empathy, acceptance, and sensitivity coupled with gentle guidance that draws on nearly six decades of my own life lessons and experiences as well what I’ve learned from others. Working together, you can count on a safe space to pause, reflect, and call forth your natural strengths, innate wisdom, and deep-rooted resilience in the pursuit of positive change, inner peace, and passionate living.

How I work

In the beginning, we will build rapport and talk about what brought you in – your concerns, needs, and what you hope to get out of counseling. If you don’t know, that’s ok; we’ll uncover them together. I’m dedicated to helping you make sense of your thoughts, emotions, patterns of behavior, and life events by bringing a balance of comfort, curiosity, candor, compassion, and challenge to the therapeutic process.

As we go further into the work of therapy, you will be invited to slow down, turn inward, and dig deep. In doing so, we will contemplate your inner landscape, experiences, and relationships. We will invite wonder and the answers to some of life’s most thought-provoking questions. Importantly, we will also consider practical tools, strategies, and practices for relieving stress and coping with life’s uncertainties as well as adapting to change, negotiating everyday demands, and overcoming obstacles to your goals.

Using an existential approach to therapy that primarily integrates mindfulness and cognitive-behavioral interventions taken from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) as well as insights from The Enneagram, we will mindfully connect with the present, seek insights, cultivate acceptance, ponder empowering perspectives, explore new possibilities, clarify what’s important to you, and do what matters. Over time, you can trust your relationship with yourself, others, and life will begin to shift in purposeful and meaningful ways.

Full contact with life – its suffering, its joy, its mystery – and your journey to greater wellbeing, meaning, and fulfillment through therapy will summon your willingness, courage, and vulnerability coupled with an unwavering commitment to the pursuit of your true potential at a pace that’s just right for you.

If you’re open to it, therapy can not only be healing, but a powerful impetus for the gradual emergence of an authentic, wholehearted way of being and a gratifying experience of life despite its changes and challenges.

What Teresa helps with

• Anxiety
• Grief and Loss
• Meaning & Purpose
• Midlife Transitions
• Relationship Concerns
• Aging & Later-Life Adjustment
• Alternative Spirituality
• Attachment Concerns
• Boundaries
• Career Direction
• Codependency
• Depression
• Life Transitions
• Perfectionism
• Self-Esteem
• Spiritual Growth
• Stress
• Work-Life Balance
• Abandonment
• Adoption / Foster Care
• Caregiving Stress
• Divorce / Separation
• Family Conflict
• Infertility
• LGBTQ+ Concerns
• Parenting
• People-Pleasing
• Perinatal & Postpartum Concerns
• Pregnancy Loss

Who Teresa works with

• Caregivers
• LGBTQ+ Individuals
• Spiritually Exploring Individuals
• Adoptive & Foster Families
• Artists & Creatives
• Bicultural / Multicultural Individuals
• BIPOC Communities
• Latino / Hispanic Communities
• Parents & New Parents
• Perinatal & Postpartum Individuals
• Sex-Positive Individuals
• Young Professionals

How Teresa works

• Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)
• Enneagram-Informed
• Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
• Integrative Approach
• Mindfulness
• Person-Centered

Therapist spotlight

What made you decide to become a counselor?

I decided to become a counselor after a long-standing, heartfelt desire to turn my passion for personal growth, curiosity about personality, and fascination with human nature into a profession. While I started my transition from high tech to the healing arts with doing massage therapy and teaching yoga, I had known all along I wanted to be a therapist. Now after years of facing my fears, learning to trust life, and having finally settled into my life’s work as a mindfulness-based and Enneagram-informed counselor, I cannot imagine doing anything else that could bring me greater joy. I treasure each and every opportunity to guide others to know, accept, and love themselves; live their lives full-on, full-out from the heart; and enjoy more peace, freedom, and vitality in their life, work, and relationships.

If you could teach the world one skill or technique to improve their lives, what would it be?

Although it’s certainly not easy at times and likely takes a lifetime for everyone, this skill is Self-acceptance.

If you could recommend one book to all your clients, what would it be?

Way of Mastery by Shanti Christo Foundation

How do you personally practice self-care?

Yoga, meditation, mindfulness and spiritual practices, studying the Enneagram, spending time with family and friends, squeezing in a good read or movie, settling into quiet solitude, and setting aside time for a wellness workshop or meditation retreat every now and again.

Have you personally been in counseling and if so, what did you learn about yourself?

Yes, a few times, off-and-on since my mid- 20s. More than anything else, what I have learned about myself is that I can trust and love although still difficult at times. What I have come to learn about life is that I am forever being guided by a loving Lifeforce even if it doesn’t feel that way and there is no greater privilege than to become who we truly are.

What inspires you to help others?

Nothing is more fascinating to me than profoundly understanding ourselves and nothing is more inspiring or fulfilling than empowering others to become their true self and live into their greatest potential. As I support others on their paths to healing, awakening, and growth, my own learning deepens, wisdom expands, and growth happens.

Who is your ideal client?

Individuals challenged by major transitions, struggling in their relationships, burdened by anxiety, derailed by depression, or grieving a loss and those who are willing to fully engage in therapy, committed to exploring their “growth edges”, and open to mindfulness.

How do you relate to mindfulness?

Mindfulness is a “way of being”, an approach to living, an essential form of “inner strength training”, and an empowering practice. I embrace it in my own life and it’s an important part of my approach to therapy having a basis in Acceptance & Commitment Therapy. ACT uniquely combines cognitive, behavioral, and mindfulness interventions that are not only intended to relieve symptoms and facilitate positive change and growth, but also have the potential to expand and deepen one’s experience of life.

If you are hosting a dinner party, who are the 3 people you would invite and why?

I'd invite Irvin Yalom, an American existential psychiatrist and master therapist, for his insights into the human condition and his work with clients; Pema Chödrön, a Buddhist teacher, for her wisdom on meditation, peace, and compassion; and Ram Dass, the late American spiritual teacher, yogi, and psychologist, for his perspective on spirituality and personal growth.

What are the most common problems your clients bring to you?

Anxiety, depression, major life or career transitions, grief/loss, and relationship issues.

How do you incorporate Mindfulness into your sessions?

I incorporate mindfulness into my sessions by describing mindfulness as a concept, introducing the 9 Mindfulness Attitudes, describing different mindfulness practices, and creating experiences of present-moment mindfulness by way of breathwork, short meditations, or guided visualizations.