Online Therapy After Concussion in Atlanta and Across Georgia
Maybe you expected to feel better by now.
Things that once felt automatic require more effort. Your energy is unpredictable. You lose your train of thought. You react more strongly than you expect. Work, exercise, socializing, or simply getting through the day may require a kind of calculation you never had to make before.
Or maybe some of those symptoms have improved, but you are beginning to realize the concussion changed more than your routine.
The way you do and understand almost everything feels less accessible than it once did.
At Anthos, we take both parts seriously:
What is happening to you now and what it means for the life you are trying to find your way in, again.
Recovery is not just about relieving your symptoms.
A concussion can change how you think, feel, sleep, work, exercise, socialize, and move through everyday life.
That disruption can be especially difficult when you are someone who is accustomed to being capable, active, independent, or able to push through hard things.
In the beginning, you may be focused on getting through the day and trying to understand reactions that do not feel like you. Later, the questions may become different:
Why can’t I do what I used to do?
How much of this is the concussion?
Will I ever feel normal again?
What happens if my old life does not fit anymore?
People may think you look “fine” on the outside or assume that if you are cleared to return to work, school, or play that the hardest part of your recovery is over. If you are experiencing long-term persistent symptoms that misunderstanding can turn into judgement about why you have not been able to return to your usual life, especially when they think enough time has passed for you to be better.
Your experience may tell a very different story.
Recovery can involve your brain, your body, your emotions, your relationships, and your sense of who you are.
Each deserves attention.
The challenges change as recovery progresses.
In the acute stage of recovering from a concussion, you may notice:
Your emotions feel more intense, unpredictable, or difficult to control.
You become frustrated, angry, tearful, or overwhelmed in ways that do not feel like you.
You become unintentionally monotone, emotionally flat, or expressionless which can lead to awkwardness or misinterpretation from others who notice it.
Concentrating, remembering, organizing, or making decisions takes noticeably more effort.
Physical or cognitive activity leaves you depleted much faster than it used to.
You have difficulty making decisions, even when the choices seem simple or familiar.
You feel embarrassed or ashamed after reactions you did not intend to have.
You struggle with sleep, fatigue, or overstimulation
You are anxious to return to work, school, exercise, sports, or your normal routine because your current capacity does not match what you expect from yourself and you feel pressure from people who do not understand what you are going through.
You feel isolated because other people cannot see or fully understand what is happening.
You are constantly monitoring whether you are getting better.
You feel ashamed of how easily you reach sensory overload and scared to tell others how much you are affected by lights and sound for fear of being labeled as “dramatic”.
If you are navigating Persistent Post-Concussion Symptoms, or as life begins to stabilize, you may notice something different:
You are grieving activities, abilities, routines, or roles that once gave your life structure.
You keep comparing what you can do now to what you could do before the concussion.
You feel pressure to return to the person everyone remembers you being.
Work, exercise, relationships, or responsibilities requiremore effort than they used to.
You wonder how much of your old life is realistic to return to.
You feel guilty, frustrated, or ashamed when your capacity does not match your expectations or when people in your life become less patient with what you cannot handle because they think you should be "over it' by now and you see fatigue in those who have been caring for you.
You over-extend yourself because others around you do not understand your physical limitations and encourage you to do more than what you can handle right now.
You have lost confidence in your body, your mind, or your ability to rely on yourself.
You feel as though something is blocking your brain from reaching a decision, whether choosing from a menu or facing consequential choices about work, family, or your future, leaving you frustrated and self-conscious about seeking reassurance or defaulting to someone else’s choice when you have always been decisive.
You feel frustrated and ashamed by the gap between what you understand and what you are able to express when finding words or organizing your thoughts no longer comes easily.
You feel disconnected from the things that once gave you purpose, enjoyment, or momentum.
Stimulation, fatigue, or difficulty keeping up with conversations can make it harder to spend time with other people, leaving you cut off from your social world and feeling lonely.
You feel alone, especially when no one seems to believe you are still experiencing negative symptoms.
You find yourself asking, “Who am I if I cannot live the way I did before?”
What is Persistent Post-Concussion Syndrome (PPCS)?
Most people expect a concussion to interrupt their lives temporarily. But for some, symptoms continue well beyond the first days or weeks of recovery.
You may hear this described as Persistent Post-Concussion Syndrome (PPCS) or persistent post-concussion symptoms.
The experience can look different for everyone. Ongoing symptoms may include headaches, fatigue, dizziness, constant motion sickness, sensitivity to light or noise, difficulty concentrating or remembering, sleep changes, irritability, anxiety, depression, or feeling overwhelmed more easily than you did before.
At Anthos, psychotherapy is one part of A COMPREHENSIVE APPROACH TO CARE.
We help you understand and navigate the emotional, relational, and psychological impact of what you are experiencing while encouraging appropriate collaboration with the medical and rehabilitation professionals treating the other parts of your recovery.
Your brain is recovering. Your life is responding to what happened, too.
A concussion can affect brain functioning in ways that influence attention, memory, motivation, sleep, energy, and emotion. Those biological changes deserve appropriate medical evaluation and care from the right specialists, like your neurologist or physical therapist.
At the same time, living with those changes can create its own emotional impact.
Maybe you cannot work the same way. You cannot exercise or compete the way you once did. The things that made you feel competent or confident are suddenly harder to access.
That can create grief, isolation, fear, frustration, and depression alongside the physical recovery. Trying to separate all of it into “physical” or “psychological” can miss the point.
Your experiences are influencing one another.
We want to understand the whole picture rather than assume every emotional symptom is simply part of the concussion or that every struggle can be resolved through therapy alone.
You should not have to choose between treating the concussion and treating the person living through it.
We recognize that recovery often requires support from multiple disciplines. Depending on your needs, your care may also involve family therapists, physicians, neurologists, rehabilitation providers, psychiatrists, or other specialists.
Our work focuses on the part that can easily get lost between appointments, testing, restrictions, and symptom management:
What is all of this like for you?
Early in recovery, that may mean helping you manage emotional changes, tolerate uncertainty, communicate your needs, work with your current capacity, and make sense of reactions that feel unfamiliar. As you stabilize, therapy can also create space for grief, changes in relationships, lost roles, pressure to return to your old life, and questions about what comes next.
Most importantly, we want you to know that we see you.
We deeply understand how misunderstood you have likely felt by others in your life and even from other health providers. We know how much your neurobiology is affecting what you experience and feel. We know how lonely it feels when no one can see what you are going through. We will never assume you are further along than you feel. We understand how much you want your capacity back, and we will take that goal seriously. We will support your efforts to regain it while respecting your current limits, without asking you to exceed them simply to prove that you are making progress.
What is a Concussion?
A concussion occurs when a blow or sudden force causes the head and brain to accelerate, decelerate, or rotate rapidly, temporarily disrupting brain function. The force may come from a direct hit to the head or from an impact to the neck or body. A person does not have to hit their head or lose consciousness to sustain a concussion. This rapid movement can cause the brain to move, bounce, or twist within the skull, initiating chemical and metabolic changes and sometimes stretching or damaging brain cells.
Understanding what a concussion is and the symptoms that may follow provides important context for the emotional, relational, and identity effects that are the focus of our work.
To learn more about what happens in the brain during a concussion, watch this short video through 2:59.*
*The material after that point is outside the focus of this page.
Some statistics in this video may differ from the figures presented below. Concussion estimates vary depending on the population studied, the definitions and timeframes used, and how cases are identified. These differences do not necessarily represent a contradiction; the studies may be measuring different populations or outcomes.
Concussion Facts & Figures
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An estimated 1.1 million to 1.9 million sports-and recreation-related concussions occur every year among children and adolescents age 18 and younger in the United States.
Researchers estimate that approximately 512,000 to 1.24 million youth sports-and recreation-related concussions each year are not evaluated in a healthcare setting.
In a national CDC survey, 15.1% of U.S. high-school students, representing approximately 2.5 million students, reported experiencing at least one concussion related to sports or physical activity during the previous 12 months.
In the same survey, 6% of U.S. high-school students, representing approximately 1 million students, reported experiencing two or more sports-or physical-activity-related concussions during the previous 12 months.
Up to 30% of adults and up to 30% of children and adolescents may experience symptoms that persist beyond the expected initial recovery period.
Although most people recover from a concussion within several weeks, Shepherd Center estimates that approximately one in five experience longer-lasting or more complicated symptoms requiring additional evaluation and treatment.
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A 2024 study examined 92 employed adults with PPCS lasting longer than four weeks:
Approximately three-quarters returned to work, but only one-third were working under conditions similar to those before their concussion.
Average weekly work hours fell from 36.3 hours before the concussion to 17.6 hours.
Employees reported difficulty completing their work tasks 43% of the time.
65.9% reported reduced work productivity.
Common problems included slower work speed, needing more breaks, difficulty multitasking, and difficulty managing complex or demanding tasks.
Some repeatedly went back on sick leave because they became overloaded.
For many adults with PPCS and demanding careers, returning back to work does not mean returning at the capacity you used to have. In fact, attempting to perform at your former capacity is either unachievable or comes at a significant cost or recovery time.
Source: Conradsen I, Bang-Hansen VE, Sørensen AN, Rytter HM. “Return to Work in Persons With Persistent Postconcussion Symptoms.” Brain Injury, 2024. PubMed and full article
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A 2026 qualitative study focused specifically on work identity among adults with PPCS lasting longer than six months. The participants had attempted to return to work.
Researchers found:
Work was deeply connected to participants’ understanding of themselves.
Reduced professional capacity created a discrepancy between their pre-injury and post-injury identities.
Participants described loss of self and reduced self-worth.
They feared others would perceive them as inadequate.
Returning to work involved frustration, grief, guilt, sadness, and anxiety.
They had to negotiate the difference between what they could previously do and what they could presently sustain.
The effect on work identity remained significant even when people were actively attempting to resume employment.
Source: Rytter HM, Attauabi S, Hansen LS, Borch MW. “‘It Feels Like a Loss of One’s Own Identity’: Work Identity in Persons Suffering Persisting Post-Concussion Symptoms.” Disability and Rehabilitation, 2026. PubMed
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A major U.S. TRACK-TBI study followed 435 working adults ages 18–64 after mild TBI:
59% were not working two weeks after injury.
17% were still not working one year later.
21% experienced a decline in annual income.
Persistent symptoms at three months were associated with a lower likelihood of working at one year.
Source: Gaudette É, Seabury SA, Temkin N, et al. “Employment and Economic Outcomes of Participants With Mild Traumatic Brain Injury in the TRACK-TBI Study.” JAMA Network Open, 2022. Full study
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In an exploratory study of film and television stunt performers:
80% reported at least one occupational head impact or head whip.
Of those reporting an impact, 86% experienced concussion-like symptoms.
Only 38% had received one or more formal concussion diagnoses.
65% continued working despite concussion-like symptoms.
Mental-health scores were suggestive of depression in 42%.
Researchers concluded that concussion is a serious occupational-health concern among stunt performers.
Source: Russell JA, et al. “Head Trauma and Concussions in Film and Television Stunt Performers: An Exploratory Study.” Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, 2023. PubMed and full article
Identity Loss and Reconstruction After PPCS
It is not only your abilities that have been taken away, but the parts of your life through which you knew who you were.
The loss of an activity or role often means losing structure, purpose, confidence, connection, independence, or a future you had already imagined. When enough of what once defined your life becomes inaccessible, identity can become fractured.
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You may know who you were before the concussion but no longer be able to live as that person now. At the same time, the life created by your symptoms may not feel like you either. This can leave you caught between a life you cannot simply return to and one you did not choose.
Our work begins by taking the loss seriously. We make room to grieve what was taken from you and identify what the lost roles, abilities, and activities gave you beyond the things themselves. This helps us understand which parts of your identity remain intact, which parts you want to reclaim, and what may need to be expressed differently.
Identity reconstruction is not about convincing you to accept a smaller life or replacing who you were with someone new. It is about helping you develop a more complete sense of self that includes what happened to you without allowing PPCS to define all of who you are. From there, we work toward rebuilding purpose, connection, agency, and a future that feels like it belongs to you.
Identity is not formed only through what you believe about yourself. It is reinforced through what you repeatedly do, what others know you for, where you belong, what you are capable of, and the future those abilities once made possible. When PPCS disrupts those sources of evidence, being told that you are “still the same person” may not feel reassuring or even true.
Identity reconstruction means understanding what your former roles, abilities, and activities represented beyond the things themselves. They may have given you competence, discipline, belonging, freedom, recognition, structure, or a way to trust yourself. Our work helps you distinguish those deeper parts of you from the specific forms through which you once expressed them, so we can identify what remains, what may be reclaimed, and what needs another way to exist in your life.
What therapy after a concussion is like at Anthos
Your needs today may not be your needs three months from now.
Your therapy should meet you where you are, with a genuine attention to the realities and limitations that come with recovering from a brain injury.
In the beginning, what helps the most may just be sitting in the dark and acknowledging how difficult everything feels right now. Sessions may focus on stabilization, practical support, and navigating the physical and emotional aspects of what is happening in your brain and your body.
When you have the capacity, sessions may focus on the frustration of needing help with something you used to do independently, a reaction you had with your partner, or the anxiety of returning to work. We may talk about sleep, routines, relationships, physical health, medical care, work, movement, identity, grief, or the expectations you have for yourself.
Gradually, we will make room for deeper questions about what you have lost, what remains important to you, and how you want to move forward.
Therapy after a concussion is a good fit for…
People in the earlier stages of concussion recovery who are struggling with sudden emotional, cognitive, or lifestyle changes and need support navigating what is happening now.
People experiencing persistent post-concussion symptoms whose recovery has lasted longer or become more complicated than expected.
Athletes and highly active people who have lost access to sports, exercise, movement, or routines that were central to their lives.
People who cannot safely return to the sport or career that shaped their identity because another concussion could have life-altering consequences, and who are trying to build a future that does not require taking that risk.
Professionals, leaders, and other highly capable people who are struggling with changes in focus, stamina, productivity, or their ability to perform the way they once did.
Stunt performers, pilots, work-at-height professionals, and others in high-risk, physically demanding, or safety-critical roles whose livelihoods depend on physical precision, rapid judgment, reliable cognitive performance, and trust in their bodies.
People experiencing depression, anxiety, grief, or emotional instability after concussion who want those experiences taken seriously alongside their physical recovery.
People who are functioning again but do not feel like themselves and want help understanding why.
People beginning to rebuild after concussion who are navigating changes in capacity, relationships, expectations, confidence, or identity.
People who already have a medical or rehabilitation team and want psychotherapy to address the emotional and relational parts of recovery that other treatments may not fully cover, and to help them stay consistent when treatment feels defeating, frustrating, or slow to demonstrate results.
FAQs
Questions You May Have Before Reaching Out
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It may not always be possible or useful to reduce your experience to only one cause. A concussion can affect brain functioning in ways that influence emotion, cognition, sleep, energy, and motivation. Some emotions may feel so disproportionate, unfamiliar, or disconnected from what is happening that you begin to wonder, “What is going on with me?”
Understanding that concussion-related neurobiology may be contributing can make the experience less frightening. The intensity of an emotion does not necessarily mean that it reflects your character, intentions, or what you actually believe about the situation. This does not make the emotion unreal or remove responsibility for how you respond. It provides context for why the reaction may feel so unlike you.
At the same time, living with unexpected symptoms, limitations, uncertainty, and changes to your everyday life can create real psychological distress. At Anthos, we will not assume that every emotion is purely psychological or reduce every experience to the concussion. We will pay attention to both while staying within the scope of psychotherapy. Medical questions about the concussion itself should remain part of your work with appropriate medical providers.
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Not necessarily.
You do not have to wait until your physical symptoms have resolved or your recovery becomes “persistent” before emotional support can be useful.
In the earlier stages, therapy may focus more on managing emotional reactions, coping with uncertainty, adjusting expectations, communicating your needs, and navigating the immediate disruption to your life. Therapy can also help you stay consistent with physical therapy and other treatments that help your recovery progress.
The work can change as your recovery changes and will always be adjusted to your symptoms. For instance, you can sit in the dark, turn down the brightness on your screen, or end the session early if you need to.
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Medical recovery and your lived experience do not always move on exactly the same timeline.
Progress can be difficult to recognize or measure when there is no single marker of recovery. As one symptom improves, you may become more aware of another that was already there, making it difficult to feel as though you are moving forward. You may also be grieving what has changed, rebuilding confidence, adapting to different levels of energy or capacity, or trying to reconnect with parts of your life that once felt automatic.
Recovery is not linear, especially if you are used to working hard. As soon as you start to feel better, you may find that you overextend yourself and end up feeling worse again, or like you have gone backwards instead of forwards.
Those experiences deserve attention.
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That is a good thing!
Your therapist does not replace the medical professionals treating your concussion. Psychotherapy can address the emotional, relational, and identity-related parts of recovery while other providers address their areas of expertise.
With your permission, collaboration between providers can also help create a more complete understanding of what you need.
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Depression can occur after concussion for multiple reasons.
Changes in brain functioning will contribute, while loss of activity, isolation, uncertainty, changes in work or relationships, and grief over what you can no longer do may also affect how you feel.
Depressive symptoms deserve their own attention rather than being dismissed as something you simply have to tolerate because you had a concussion.
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Capacity is not only about whether you can complete something.
The amount of energy, concentration, recovery time, or emotional effort it takes matters too.
Therapy can help us look at the gap between what you are technically capable of doing and what doing it currently costs you. Our work together can also help you navigate and cope with legitimate limitations and restrictions you are now experiencing when it comes to your abilities and capacity.
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Acceptance does not have to mean assuming that nothing else will improve. It also does not mean ignoring or erasing the pain and grief surrounding what you have lost.
It starts with acknowledging your current reality well enough to make choices that support you now rather than constantly fighting against what your body and brain are currently able to do.
Acknowledging where you are gives you a clearer starting point for understanding what you need, identifying possible paths toward improvement, and encouraging investment in other parts of your recovery with greater purpose.
You can continue to hope for improvement while also building a life that supports you in the present.
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We will never tell you to give up on regaining something that matters to you.
But therapy is not designed around forcing you back into a previous version of your life.
If the concussion has created meaningful changes, part of the work may eventually involve understanding which parts of your old life you want to reconnect with, which no longer fit, and what else might become possible from here. It may also mean grieving what you may not gain back and acknowledging the pain of that loss.
You are still you, even while your relationship with yourself is changing.
A full life is still possible from here.
Recovery may be measured by what you can get back at first. Those milestones matter. However, when a concussion has changed your life for longer than you expected, healing can also involve deciding what you want your life to look like now.
Therapy can help you decide what still feels right for you, what may need to change, and how to build confidence in yourself again. Your life from here on out is not a substitute for the life you had or thought you would have before your injury. Our work together is not about deciding how to replace the old life, job, or activity you can no longer participate in. Instead, we will help you acknowledge how much what you have lost means to you and grieve what you may not gain back before stepping into something new.