ABOUT US
Hi and welcome! We are Kate and Steph, the founders of Psyched to Climb.
We’d like to share a little bit about who we are and what you can expect from a climbing therapy session.
I am an AMGA certified climbing wall instructor (Steph), so if you’ve never climbed, I’ll be able to mentor you and help you begin your climbing journey through our program.
And I am a licensed psychologist (Kate). I’ll be climbing with you and then facilitating our group sessions after. I also work with individuals (teens and adults) and couples. I will observe your climbing session with Steph and then meet with you for a therapy session after.
Our mission as Psyched to Climb founders is to promote mental, physical, and social well-being through therapeutic climbing experiences. If you want more information about what we offer, navigate to our services tab, where you can also link to a form to connect with us and begin your climbing therapy journey. Expect this tab to grow as we roll out more groups and offerings such as weekend retreats, half day corporate retreats, mindful climbing workshops and sessions with parents and children.
You can also check out our homepage and the articles we linked to learn more about the benefits of climbing therapy - who it can help and what it can help with. We have a lot of ideas about why climbing in particular is therapeutic. We don’t have much research yet, but it’s a growing service that we are excited to launch here in Austin and keep learning about how and who it helps. We hope one of our services is a good fit for you, and we look forward to climbing and talking together soon!
Rock on,
Kate and Steph
A letter from our founders
We believe integrating climbing & therapy can help people:
Build confidence,
courage, self-awareness, and strength
Develop relationships rooted in safety, support, trust, and vulnerability
Build resilience to defeat, disappointment, hardship, and limitations
Develop healthier relationships
with fear, risk, and security
WHAT WE OFFER
COUPLES THERAPY
INDIVIDUAL THERAPY
OUR FOUNDERS
Dr. Kate Thomas
Licensed Psychologist & Co-Founder
Kate completed her Ph.D. in clinical psychology in 2015 and began her career as a professor at Purdue University. Soon after starting, she tried Purdue’s climbing wall and immediately fell in love with struggling and succeeding on the wall and began to regularly climb at the gym. Wanting to work with people more than do research, she moved to Austin in 2019 to work at the Center for Therapeutic Assessment where she now has a private practice working with adolescents, adults, and couples. She has continued to fall more deeply in love with climbing through Austin’s access to outdoor crags and world-class gyms and our welcoming and diverse climbing community. She believes climbing provides metaphors for every essential life lesson (like: The most successful people are also the ones who fail and fall the most).
Steph Thomas
Mindset & Climbing Coach & Co-Founder
Steph discovered climbing in 2015 after biking with Texas 4000 for Cancer from Austin to Anchorage, Alaska. On her return from such a life changing journey, she fell into a depression that climbing helped her get out of. Since then, she has enjoyed climbing recreationally for years before deciding to leave her advertising job and become an AMGA certified climbing wall instructor. She has a passion for mentoring beginner climbers and sharing her love for climbing with anyone who wants to listen. Her favorite climbing area is Horse Shoe Canyon Ranch in Arkansas, but you can find her climbing here in Austin at the Green Belt, Reimers Ranch, and all climbing gyms in Austin. She is currently working towards becoming an AMGA Single Pitch Instructor to explore outdoor climbing opportunities with Psyched to Climb.