Yulia Tsarenko Carey is a Licensed Professional Counselor based in the Portland, Oregon area, and the founder of Oris Counseling, LLC. She is a graduate of the MSc in Applied Sport and Exercise Psychology with Setanta College.
Below, Yulia discusses her path into sport psychology, the practice she has built, and what studying with Setanta added to her career.
A Path That Wasn’t a Straight Line
Yulia’s route into sport psychology took her across continents and disciplines.
“I’m a Licensed Professional Counselor based in the Portland, Oregon area, currently pursuing my CMPC certification. My path here wasn’t a straight line — I trained as a psychologist in Vladivostok, Russia, earning my clinical psychology degrees there and working at a children’s hospital, before immigrating to the US and rebuilding my career from the ground up.
My interest in sport psychology specifically came from my love for ice hockey. I started noticing performance variations between games that didn’t seem to connect to skill level or team composition, and that curiosity led me to pursue formal study in sport and exercise psychology. At one point, I decided to start playing hockey because I wanted a hands-on understanding of the sport and the mindsets involved. It felt important to practice what I was preaching, in a way.”
Building Oris Counseling
Today, Yulia runs her own practice, balancing clinical work with a growing performance focus.
“I own and run Oris Counseling, LLC, an independent practice in Portland that I founded in 2023. My week is a blend of clinical therapy and a growing mental performance side of my work. Currently, I carry a caseload of individual and family clients using evidence-based approaches like CBT, EMDR, IFS and DBT, while increasingly weaving in mental performance and sport psychology work as I move through my CMPC certification.
I also handle the practical side of running a small practice — documentation, billing and so on — but it’s the clinical and performance work that’s really the heart of my week.”
Career Journey
“I started as a clinical psychologist in Russia, then had to essentially rebuild my career after immigrating to the US. Discovering my interest in sport psychology was a turning point, and it led me to pursue an MSc in Sport and Exercise Psychology and start working toward my CMPC certification.
Founding Oris Counseling in 2023 has been a major highlight, allowing me to bring together my clinical training, my own experience adapting to a new country and culture, and my newer focus on mental performance into one practice. More recently, I’ve been proud to serve on the Association for Applied Sport Psychology’s International Relations Committee, helping highlight sport psychology work happening around the world, and as a board member for The Sports Creative, an organisation that uses inclusive soccer programmes paired with creative storytelling to empower young people in their communities.”
Why Setanta
Yulia was looking for formal, structured training she could build on top of her clinical foundation.
“I already had a strong clinical foundation as a therapist, but I’d grown genuinely fascinated with the mental side of athletic performance, and I wanted formal, structured training in sport and exercise psychology so I could work toward CMPC certification and start applying mental performance work with athletes in a credible, evidence-based way.
Setanta’s programme let me build directly on my clinical background, and studying online meant I could continue running my full-time practice while I did it, which mattered a lot to me at this stage of my career.”
A Well-Rounded Programme
“What I’ve valued most is the robustness of the programme and how broad and well-rounded the curriculum is. It doesn’t just focus narrowly on performance psychology; it covers a wide range of areas across sport sciences, including neuropsychology and coaching, alongside foundational coursework that introduces you to how the world of sport operates from multiple angles.
Setanta’s well-rounded exposure has given me a much fuller picture of sport psychology and how it fits into athletic performance and coaching more broadly. Another part I thought was incredibly valuable is the practical side of the programme, which is especially impressive considering the online nature of it. Setanta was able to build a structure that allows theory, practice and feedback to be well integrated.”
Advice for Others
“Stay open to new knowledge and keep integrating it, because professional development — and honestly life in general — depends on being willing to keep learning and applying what we learn. But just as important is paying attention to your own personal experiences, because they hold information that can be transformed into meaningful work too.
In my case, my experience immigrating to a new country, combined with my clinical background and my growing knowledge of sport psychology, has created my own lens that lets me uniquely shape my practice. And practically speaking, since I’m still early in my sport psychology career specifically, networking is advice I’ve heard again and again and would pass along myself — while also reminding people to stay focused and allow time for the career to grow.”
Looking Ahead
“My near-term focus is finishing my CMPC certification and continuing to grow the mental performance side of Oris Counseling alongside my clinical therapy work. I want to keep building workshops for young athletes and their parents that introduce mental skills training early.
I’m also planning to lean further into supporting athletes through cultural adaptation, relocation and the adjustment challenges that come with immigration, as well as continuing my involvement with organisations like AASP along the way.”
Learn more about the MSc in Applied Sport and Exercise Psychology.
