Get to Know Matt Choquette, PsyD, CMPC

Profiling Central Therapy's Sport Psychology Program Founder

Matt Choquette holds the honor of being Central Therapy’s first (and so far only) sport psychologist, in addition to his role as CBT clinician. Undergraduate intern Kyle Swords interviewed him for our next employee profile for our blog. Read on to learn more about Matt!

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In our next post, we will be talking about Matt Choquette, postdoctoral candidate at Central Therapy, and incredibly busy human. In addition to providing individual, couples, and sport psychology therapy at Central Therapy, Matt provides school psychology services at RPRY, a local Jewish day school, through the practice. If that weren’t enough, Matt also teaches at Rutgers University and teaches and provides sport psychology services at Drew University. In spite of the fact that Matt is already crushing the psychology world, this is actually a second career for him. 

Matt started his career with an undergraduate degree in Journalism and Communications. After graduating, he spent some time working in college sports communications and college admissions. After a few years, Matt felt he wanted a change of pace, and the COVID pandemic gave him an opportunity to do just that. During that time, he got his masters in Psychology and afterwards got his PsyD from Rutgers University, all while maintaining his job in the Rutgers admission department. Matt now specializes in CBT, DBT, PCIT, and sports & performance psychology. 

Matt’s interest in therapy can be attributed to  a few factors. Matt gives a lot of credit to the fact that he has been through therapy himself and has benefited from it. Additionally, he has always had an academic interest in psychology. Finally, Matt’s father is a doctor, and Matt always wanted to follow in his footsteps in helping others. While being a doctor wasn’t for him, therapy offered a way to pursue this, in a way more consistent with his own interests.

As a therapist, Matt is uniquely able to connect with so many different types of people. He has always been the type of person who can start a conversation with anyone. (This interview was my first chance to talk one-on-one with Matt, and his friendliness was immediately noticeable).

A unique thing about Matt’s education is that he was professionally trained to be integrative. While it is always a skill taught, in Matt’s program it was an emphasis. Thus, Matt likes to utilize a large toolbox of interventions when helping clients. With his outgoing personality, he prioritizes connection and active listening. He harnesses that connection to work with the client and find what works best for them.

A first session with Matt will often include more questions than usual, as he believes it is very important to understand as much as possible the client’s history and how that history will influence the following sessions.

What Matt finds most rewarding in his work is being able to make connections with people and seeing the clients improve. It’s especially meaningful when he is able to say goodbye to his clients. Some of his favorite compliments from his clients came  when he was able to take a complex concept and make it more understandable for them.

Now some fun facts about Matt! Matt’s favorite quote, from one of his old professors, is “Intention drives attention.”His favorite book of all time is Nine Stories by J.D. Salinger. A more recent favorite read is Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir. Matt is a very athletic, active person. In his free time, Matt likes running marathons and olympic triathlons. He also enjoys playing video games, especially games with immersive stories or puzzles. He is currently in a rock cover band, while also working on a progressive album himself. At home, he has three daughters and an Australian shepherd poodle mix named Rocket. Matt is an amazing, outgoing person with a variety of interests. 

If you’re interested in learning more about Matt’s professional experience and focus, you can see his bio here. If you’re working with Matt for individual or couples therapy, contact us to schedule an intake today!