Teen Therapy · Ages 13+
Therapy doesn't have to feel like an interrogation.
You don't have to show up knowing what to say, what you want to work on, or how you're supposed to do therapy. We'll figure that part out together.
We can talk about the hard stuff. We can also talk about school, friends, family, the game you're playing, the show you're watching, or whatever else is taking up space in your brain.
For the parent who found this page
Something's been different lately.
Maybe your teen seems more anxious, overwhelmed, irritable, withdrawn, or harder on themselves than usual. Maybe school, friendships, family, or just keeping up with everything has started feeling like a lot.
Or maybe nothing is dramatically wrong. You know your kid, and something seems off.
So, what do we actually do?
Therapy can look different here.
You don't have to sit down and immediately start talking about your deepest feelings. Sometimes we get right into it. Sometimes we don't. We'll figure out what works for you.
We talk. About whatever.
We might talk about why you're here. We might spend ten minutes talking about school, your friends, a game, a show, or something completely unrelated first. That's fine. Usually we'll get where we need to go.
We figure out what's going on.
If you're anxious, angry, shutting down, procrastinating, or stuck in your own head, I'm not just going to tell you to stop. We'll figure out what's actually happening and what might help.
We try things.
I don't want you leaving every week thinking, "Cool, I talked about it." We might learn a skill, work through something that's actually happening in your life, try a different way of handling it, or do something besides just sitting there talking.
We don't have to be serious the entire time.
Some sessions are serious. Some are funny. Usually they're a little bit of both. You can laugh, get distracted, tell me about something you love, and still do real work.
The goal isn't to make you really good at therapy. It's to make therapy useful outside of therapy.
You don't have to leave your interests at the door.
Yes, the stuff you like counts.
Maybe it's a character you relate to a little too much. A game you've put an unreasonable number of hours into. A song that says the thing you can't quite explain. A team, artist, book, movie, show, fandom, or very specific thing you could talk about forever.
I genuinely want to hear about it. Sometimes the stuff you already love gives us a much easier way to talk about the stuff that's harder to explain.
If it matters to you, we can use it.
For parents
You're part of this too.
Therapy tends to work better when teens have room to talk openly and parents aren't completely left in the dark. Part of my job is figuring out that balance.
Your teen gets privacy.
Having a space where they can talk honestly matters. I don't give parents a play-by-play of sessions, and we'll talk together at the beginning about what privacy looks like and its limits.
You're not shut out.
You know your kid better than I do. There may be times when your perspective is helpful, we need to check in, or we decide together that some parent involvement would make therapy more useful.
Safety is different.
If I'm concerned about your teen's safety or there's something I legally need to act on, privacy has limits. We'll go over those limits clearly so nobody has to guess how this works.
The goal is for your teen to have a space that feels like theirs while still keeping you appropriately involved.
What we can work on
There doesn't have to be just one thing.
Not totally sure what's going on yet? That's okay. Figuring that out can be part of therapy too.
First time in therapy?
You don't need to prepare for it.
There is no grade for being good at therapy. Promise.
Show up.
That's genuinely enough. You don't need notes, a list of goals, or a speech about why you're here.
We'll figure out where to start.
The first session is mostly getting to know each other and talking about what's been going on. I'll ask questions. You can ask me things too.
We go from there.
You don't have to tell me everything immediately. We figure out what you want help with and what makes sense to work on first.