Aakanksha Punj, LPC

Aakanksha Punj is a licensed professional counselor (LPC) who draws on six years of clinical experience to help people who feel overwhelmed or burned out. She understands the pressure of performance and high expectations from her own background as a former Division I athlete and an immigrant. Her work is direct but warm, aimed at helping people regain a sense of balance and control.

She often meets people who look successful on the outside but feel anxious, exhausted, or stuck inside. Sessions focus on noticing the patterns that keep someone in survival mode and on practical steps to change those patterns. Aakanksha helps clients build emotional regulation skills and process unresolved experiences so they can reconnect with themselves.

She commonly supports professionals, high achievers, athletes, and people navigating transitions, identity questions, or addiction recovery. That may include concerns about stress, anxiety, trauma and abuse, self-esteem, and career shifts. Her additional focus areas include adoption and foster care, attachment issues, dependent personality, and immigration-related concerns among others.

Her approach adapts evidence-based therapeutic techniques to each person’s needs. In practice that means collaborative goal-setting, straightforward feedback, and skill-building exercises you can use between sessions. The emphasis is on making meaningful, lasting change rather than only managing symptoms.

Sessions are conducted in English and are based out of Colorado. To begin, a short matching questionnaire and scheduling step are used to align goals and availability before starting work together.

How therapeutic approaches guide online work

Aakanksha uses evidence-based therapeutic techniques tailored to each person. One common method focuses on emotional regulation skills - teaching practical tools to manage intense feelings and reduce reactivity. This helps with anxiety, stress, and recovery from difficult experiences.

Another approach emphasizes processing past experiences and noticing patterns that keep someone stuck. That work involves gentle exploration of memories and behavior patterns, then practicing new responses to everyday triggers. It is useful for trauma, attachment issues, and problems related to identity or transition.

Choosing the right approach is part of the process. The therapist collaborates with each person to identify goals, try methods, and adjust plans based on what helps most. Clients help shape the focus and pace so therapy fits their needs and preferences.

If you are considering online sessions, confirm which formats are offered before booking since the biography does not list them. Online work can make it easier to fit therapy into a busy schedule, reduce travel time, and allow shorter check-ins when that is helpful. Licensed professionals can adapt exercises and skill practice to remote sessions so people keep making progress even when life is busy.