An application of Dohsa Therapy for student-athletes as part of university counselling services

It has been well recognized that student-athletes (SAs) are a hard-to-reach population for university counselling services. However, after this present author started implementing Dohsa Therapy (DT), a body psychotherapy originally developed in Japan, the total number of therapy sessions increased remarkably. There has been as many as nine times the number of sessions than before DT was implemented. Once SAs started DT and noticed changes in their bodies, movements, and postures, which improved their sport performance as well as mental wellness, they became willing participants for extended periods. This paper describes how DT was implemented through university counselling services and contributed to the connectivity between the services and the SAs by overcoming the barriers to psychological assistance.