Vanessa Chafos, Licensed Clinical Sport Psychologist
Dr. Vanessa Chafos is licensed as a Psychologist and is also a Certified Mental Performance Consultant® administered by the Association for Applied Sport Psychology (AASP). Vanessa has extensive experience working with athletes and high performing professionals throughout the United States. She received her Masters degree in Counseling Psychology from Felician University in 2012 and her Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology with a concentration in Sport Psychology in 2021 from Seton Hall University. In 2022, Vanessa completed a Post-Doctoral Clinical Psychology Fellowship at Princeton University’s Counseling and Psychological Services specializing in working with student athletes and eating concerns. Her passion for working with athletes and high performing professionals has led her to join the Amplify Wellness + Performance team.
Vanessa takes a mindful and personalized approach in working with individuals to assist in reaching one’s goals in a warm and supportive atmosphere. She tends to incorporate mindfulness and other performance techniques to assist one in the growth process and realization of strengths and goals. Vanessa has presented regionally and nationally on topics related to mindfulness, sport injury, and performance. She has published research in sport psychology and mindfulness and has taught psychology courses to undergraduate students. Vanessa has also acquired other extensive experiences over the past several years with diverse populations that include working with individuals in outpatient, residential, intensive outpatient, inpatient, and school/university settings. Having these experiences, provides her with tools to have both a strong clinical lens in understanding mental health issues, while simultaneously having the specialized expertise in working within the sport and performance sector.
Her professional and clinical interests include anxiety, identity, life transitions, mindfulness, performance enhancement, athletic motivation and confidence, athletic injury and rehabilitation, trauma and resilience, over-training and burnout prevention, eating concerns, and relationship or interpersonal concerns.