All sessions are conducted under the clinical supervision of Kristi Gilleland, a licensed therapist at The Banyan Tree Center. This means clients receive attentive, evidence-based care with an additional layer of professional oversight.

I’m Blaire Moraski, a graduate student counselor at The Banyan Tree Center in Athens, Georgia. I work primarily with teens, young adults, and adults navigating anxiety, emotional overwhelm, life transitions, identity, relationships, and the pressures that can come with trying to hold everything together. I see clients in person in Athens and via telehealth under the supervision of Kristi Gilleland.

I came to therapy through a longstanding curiosity about people: how our relationships, environments, histories, cultures, and experiences shape the way we understand ourselves. Before graduate school, I studied Spanish and International Studies and worked in language education, mentoring, and one-on-one support with college students. My social work training has added another layer to that perspective, helping me think not only about what is happening within a person, but also about the systems, relationships, and circumstances surrounding them.

I’m especially interested in the connection between our minds and bodies. Movement has been an important part of my own life through yoga, strength training, climbing, and cycling, and those experiences have shaped the way I think about resilience, confidence, rest, challenge, and feeling connected to ourselves. Stress and emotion do not exist only in our thoughts; we often feel them physically, too. In therapy, I may incorporate mindfulness, grounding, emotional-regulation skills, and attention to the body’s experience while helping clients better understand the thoughts, patterns, relationships, and circumstances affecting them.

My style is warm, curious, collaborative, and practical. There is room to slow down and understand what you’re feeling, but I also want therapy to help you move toward something. Together, we can identify patterns, build skills, experiment with new ways of responding, and figure out what feels meaningful and sustainable for your life.

“Therapy can be a place to understand where you are, reconnect with yourself, and begin moving toward where you want to be.”

Background and Credentials

• Graduate Student Counselor, The Banyan Tree Center, supervised by Kristi Gilleland
• Master of Social Work candidate, University of Georgia School of Social Work, expected 2027
• Previous clinical internship providing psychoeducational group support in a substance-use treatment setting
• Graduate coursework in behavioral intervention methods
• QPR Suicide Prevention Training
• Opioid Response Network Training
• Interprofessional Education Collaborative (IPEC) Training
• Previous experience mentoring and working one-on-one with college and university students
• Reduced fee available

How I Work

• In person · The Banyan Tree Center, Athens, GA
• Telehealth available throughout Georgia
• Ages: Teens and adults

Approaches: Strengths-based · Person-in-environment · CBT-informed · ACT-informed · DBT skills · Mindfulness-based · Mind-body informed · Collaborative

What I Specialize In

Anxiety & Overthinking in Athens, GA

Who I work with: Anxiety doesn’t always look like panic. Sometimes it looks like constantly thinking ahead, replaying conversations, second-guessing yourself, feeling responsible for everything, or being unable to fully relax even when nothing is technically wrong. You may look capable and composed to everyone around you while internally feeling tense, overwhelmed, or exhausted.

What we do together: We’ll get curious about both the thoughts and the physical experience of anxiety. That can mean identifying thought patterns, understanding what tends to trigger or maintain them, practicing grounding and emotional-regulation skills, and noticing how stress shows up in your body. I like therapy to include practical tools you can experiment with outside of our sessions, not just insight into why you’re anxious.

Teens, College Students & Young Adults in Athens, GA

Who I work with: Adolescence, college, and early adulthood involve an enormous amount of figuring things out: who you are, what you value, where you belong, what relationships you want, and what your future is “supposed” to look like. Anxiety, academic pressure, family expectations, relationships, loneliness, substance use, and uncertainty about the future can make an already complicated stage of life feel even heavier.

What we do together: I aim to offer a space where you don’t have to perform, have everything figured out, or know exactly what you want from therapy. We’ll make sense of what’s happening, identify what matters to you, and work collaboratively toward changes that feel realistic. Having spent much of my professional life in university and mentoring environments, I understand how many different pressures can converge during these years.

Emotional Regulation & Feeling Overwhelmed in Athens, GA

Who I work with: Sometimes emotions feel like they go from zero to one hundred. Other times the opposite happens and you shut down, disconnect, or feel numb. You may know intellectually that you want to respond differently but have difficulty slowing things down enough in the moment to do so.

What we do together: We’ll practice noticing emotions earlier, putting language to what you’re experiencing, and paying attention to the thoughts and physical sensations that accompany them. Drawing from mindfulness and DBT-informed skills, we can build ways of responding to intense emotions without expecting you to simply make them disappear. The goal is greater flexibility and confidence in navigating your internal experience, relationships, and everyday life.

Life Transitions, Identity & Women’s Issues in Athens, GA

Who I work with: Some changes are chosen and others are not. Graduating, moving, changing careers, losing a relationship, grieving someone, taking on a new identity, or realizing that the life you expected is not quite the life you want can leave you feeling unsteady.

I’m particularly interested in working with women navigating identity, relationships, boundaries, body image, work, caregiving roles, and competing expectations about who they are supposed to be. Sometimes nothing is obviously “wrong,” but you can sense that something has shifted and may no longer fit.

What we do together: Therapy can offer space to grieve what has changed while making meaning of what comes next. We can explore identity, values, relationships, and the stories you carry about who you have been and who you are becoming. I’m especially interested in how reflection, ritual, and intentionally marking beginnings and endings can help us acknowledge what is being left behind and decide what you want to carry forward.

Stress, Burnout & Performance Pressure in Athens, GA

Who I work with: You may be doing well on paper while privately feeling depleted. You keep meeting deadlines, taking care of other people, showing up, and getting things done, but resting feels difficult or even guilt-inducing. Eventually, living in that state can make everything feel like another task.

I’m also interested in working with athletes and people for whom movement is an important part of life. Training, competition, injury, performance pressure, body image, changing physical abilities, or losing access to an activity that once provided structure and community can affect much more than physical health.

What we do together: We’ll look at the patterns keeping you in constant motion, including expectations, boundaries, self-talk, relationships, and the messages you’ve absorbed about productivity and worth. For athletes and active clients, that might also include exploring how movement, performance, injury, or physical identity intersects with emotional well-being. We can work with mindfulness, values, self-compassion, nervous-system awareness, and practical changes that support a more sustainable relationship with effort and rest.

A Few Things I Want You to Know

Before your first session: You don’t need to arrive knowing exactly what to say or even exactly why you’re seeking therapy. It’s normal for starting to feel vulnerable or uncertain. We’ll move at a pace that feels manageable, and part of my job is helping us figure out together where to begin.

What is valuable about working with a graduate student counselor: Working with a graduate student counselor means you receive care from someone who is actively learning, closely supervised, and deeply invested in the work. I bring current clinical training and regular supervision while approaching our work with curiosity and preparation.

Something I wish more people knew: Taking care of your mental health is far from a selfish endeavor. Feeling more grounded and connected to yourself can affect the way you show up in relationships, school, work, family, and community. Therapy isn’t only about reducing what hurts; it can also be about creating more room for the parts of your life that matter.

Who I do my best work with: I especially enjoy working with teens and adults who are thoughtful, curious, and interested in understanding themselves more deeply, even if they are not yet sure exactly what needs to change. I’m particularly drawn to working with women, young adults, and clients navigating anxiety, emotional overwhelm, life transitions, identity, or the intersection of mental health and an active lifestyle.

I am also continuing to deepen my clinical interests in trauma, OCD, and mind-body approaches to therapy.

One more thing: Movement, mindfulness, and connection are important parts of how I think about well-being. In my own life, yoga, lifting, climbing, and cycling have each offered different ways to experience challenge, presence, community, confidence, and rest. That perspective is part of what draws me toward mindfulness, grounding, body awareness, and other mind-body approaches in therapy.