Therapy for Teens


Being a teen today can feel overwhelming. I help teens make sense of their feelings, express themselves in healthy ways, and find tools to manage stress and everyday life.

Many teens feel misunderstood—like their parents just don’t get what they’re going through. That can lead to frustration, self-doubt, and feeling alone. You're not alone in this.

Together, we can work on building confidence, setting healthy boundaries, and growing more self-compassion. My goal is to create a space where teens feel heard, supported, and more at ease with themselves.

School can be a really tough time for teens. With pressure from classes, sports, work, and preparing for college, many teens feel overwhelmed, exhausted, and anxious about keeping up.

Common reasons parents bring their teen to me for counseling:

  • Anxiety or depression – not seeming as happy as they used to be

  • Major life transitions – medical, move, transition from middle school to high-school, death of a loved one, divorce/separation and blended family.

  • Sudden decline in grades or school performance

  • Communication issues at home, getting into arguments and not feeling like your teen is respecting any of the limits

  • Significant changes in weight, appetite, sleep habits, and or energy levels.

  • Social concerns, change in peer groups, spending an unusual amount of time alone in room or being too busy leading to overwhelm

  • Intrusive thoughts

  • Emotional dysregulation

  • Grief and loss

  • Concerns with substance use

  • Trauma

  • Boundaries

  • Sometimes teens just need to have a safe confidential space to share feelings, access their own inner wisdom and build resilience.


Helping teens manage strong emotions

Helping our children develop interiority will require us to develop it as well. What we model to our children in terms of dealing with our own distress – and theirs – will in large part determine what they learn about managing emotions. When something upsetting happens, all of us have an immediate desire to make the problem go away as quickly as possible. It may be difficult to stay with upsetting feelings of fear or despair, and so we get really uncomfortable and plunge into action to try to fix things.

While this is an understandable and normal response, it can often work against us. Rushing to fix a problem leaves us with little time to feel our feelings and be curious about them. It encourages our kids to see the inner life as something that needs to be managed rather than experienced. It is easy as a parent to fall into the trap of responding in this way. When children are upset, we feel an urgency to resolve their distress.

There will be times when our teens come to us in distress and some advice and problem solving may be necessary. However, there will be times where listening with openness and curiosity shows respect for the feelings in their own right. It gives those feelings space to just be there, and time to see if those feelings need to transform into something else. Attending to our feelings helps us cultivate an awareness of and appreciation for our inner life.

Parents, I always want to hear from you. Your thoughts and concerns about your teen are an important part of my work.

Please reach out if you are concerned about your teen, I’m here to support you through it.