Depression is more than just feeling sad. When you’re depressed, it’s like a goblin inside of your brain has switched off the power to all positive feelings and ramped up the negative feelings. Depression can include numbness, hopelessness, irritability, lack of energy, feeling worthless, guilt, and sadness. Depression is often caused by a combination of biological and psychological factors and being depressed is not a personal failure and it doesn’t mean that you’ve done something wrong.

Therapy can help teens explore thoughts, behaviors, and emotions that contribute to symptoms of depression. My approach to treating depression assumes that teens have so many strengths and resources that have become clouded by symptoms. We work together to rediscover what unique abilities teens have that can help them successful manage depression and identify any areas where we can build capacity and resources to help weather symptoms in the future.

Depression is often a chronic condition that requires ongoing maintenance, and it is often a signal that something in a teen’s life is out of alignment or causing undue distress. We work to not only find ways to effectively cope with symptoms, but to address underlying issues that contribute to emotions so that teens can live a full and authentic life without the weight of depression.

Each person is different and requires a tailored, individualized therapeutic approach. I blend multiple evidence-based psychotherapeutic treatments to maximize effectiveness. Modalities I use to treat depression include:

·      Internal Family Systems (IFS)

·      Emotionally-Focused Individual Therapy (EFIT)

·      Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT)

·      Interpersonal Psychotherapy for Adolescents (IPT-A)

By drawing from multiple approaches and creating a unique, collaborative plan of action with teens, we can address the wide variety of factors that impact depression and give them the best chance at feeling better and healing for good.

Self-harm (also known as non-suicidal self-injury) can be scary for both teens and parents. Cutting, burning, scratching, and hitting yourself is often depicted in the media as a sure sign that you’re in a crisis. In real life, that isn’t always the case. More often than not, self-injury is a coping tool that teens use to manage overwhelming emotions. Teens may self-harm to stop feeling intense sadness, anger, or anxiety or to feel something at all after an extended period of emotional numbness.

One thing is for sure: self-harm, even though it’s scary, serves a purpose. By understanding what contributes to belief that self-harm is the right coping choice for teens, we find a way to resolve what’s at the core of the issue and find alternatives for managing emotions. Therapy can help teens feel better for good so that self-harm doesn’t need to play a role in their life anymore.

I treat self-harm by approaching behaviors with curiosity rather than judgement. It’s important that teens don’t feel stigmatized by their therapist for self-harming. I believe teens that self-harm are not weird, sick, or abnormal—they’re just people trying the best they can to feel better. The teens I see work through self-harm using the following evidence-based treatments:

• Internal Family Systems therapy

• Dialectical Behavior therapy skills

• Emotionally Focused Individual therapy

Understanding the emotional root causes of self-harm is essential. In therapy with me, teens can learn how to understand and express their emotional needs and seek support and emotion regulation in ways that don’t have to include self-harm.

Experiencing thoughts of wanting to die or being preoccupied with your own death is a scary, confusing, and overwhelming experience. Teens may feel scared to express these thoughts for fear of judgement or hospitalization. Teens who regularly think about death and dying may feel that they’re weird or something is wrong with them. The truth is, research shows that roughly 20% of teens experience suicidal ideation in a given year. Suicidal ideation is common and treatable. Teens do not have to suffer in silence.

While suicidal crisis should be treated by emergency services, suicidal ideation without a plan or intent to take your own life can be successfully treated in outpatient therapy. Having open, honest conversations with a nonjudgemental therapist can help reduce feelings of discomfort and allow us to address what’s really going on that is making teens feel like death is the only way out of their suffering.

Much like self-harm, suicidal ideation serves a purpose—it is a warning sign that something in a teen’s life is very wrong. Therapy can help teens get really curious about what in their life is not working and contributing to thoughts of suicide and address those causes. Rather than putting bandaids on a gaping wound, therapy with me addresses the many interconnecting pieces that fuel suicidal ideation to promote complete and lasting relief.

Since I began working with teens in 2009, I have had the privilege of being trained in a variety of methods for assessing and treating suicidal ideation. Over the years, I have developed an integrated system that ensures quality assessment and treatment to get the best outcomes for teens. My approach to treating suicidal ideation includes:

• Internal Family Systems therapy

• Emotionally Focused Individual therapy

• Interpersonal Psychotherapy for Adolescents

• Dialectical Behavioral Therapy skills

• Continuous assessment using the Columbia Suicide Severity Rating Scale

• Thoughtful parent involvement to ensure ongoing safety between sessions and addressing family contributions to emotional difficulties while maintaining client trust and engagement in the therapeutic process

If your teen has expressed feelings or thoughts about wanting to die, please don’t wait to seek therapy. Teens are not faking suicidality for attention and there is effective treatment available to help them feel better for good.

Anxiety is a normal human emotion that all of us feel from time to time. The world is a scary place—it makes sense to be nervous! Anxiety can be bothersome, but it serves the important purpose of keeping us safe. Anxiety becomes a problem teens’ protective worries shift into overdrive and have a negative impact on their lives.

Teens who experience anxiety may find themselves unable to participate in social events, have a hard time keeping friends, and struggle with physical symptoms like shakiness, headaches, or stomach problems. Anxiety in overdrive might impact the way that teens view themselves and the world around them in a way that holds them back from fully living.

I help teens understand and interpret symptoms of anxiety rather than just tolerating symptoms. Together, we work to process emotional blueprints that have been created by anxiety and may no longer be useful. Once we understand the underlying emotional assumptions about the self and the world, we can begin to work to replace these blueprints with more balanced systems that don’t cause undue stress and allow teens to live freely.

Traditional approaches to treating anxiety may focus primarily on coping skills and engaging with faulty thought patterns. In my experience, teens often know that their anxious thoughts are not based in reality and trying to change thought patterns can feel invalidating. My approach helps teens identify why their emotional responses make sense even if they don’t seem to be realistic or may even be contradictory to the available evidence. Once we understand emotional root causes, we can start to rewire the brain to experience things more positively.

I integrate several approaches to help teens holistically with anxiety.

• Internal Family Systems Therapy

• Emotionally Focused Individual Therapy

• Coherence Therapy

• Acceptance and Commitment Therapy

Dealing with anxiety can be draining and may severely impact a teens’ quality of life. By addressing root causes of fears, worries, and negative emotional blueprints, teens can learn to see themselves and the world in a way that allows for anxiety to take a back seat.

Exploring your identity is an essential part of being a teenager. Gender and sexual identity development takes place at a rapid, sometimes confusing pace during this stage of life. Sadly, LGBTQ+ teens face the highest rates of mental health difficulties in their age group and continue to have to deal with discrimination, bullying, and even violence at higher rates than teens who are not in their community.

I am proud to have extensive experience supporting transgender teens. I utilize affirming therapy techniques that encourages young people to be who they really are. Trans kids aren’t broken and don’t need to be fixed. Therapy with me helps trans teens explore who they are without the weight of cultural expectations and create a rich life that feels authentic and genuine.

Because LGBTQ+ teens are more than their identities, I use a holistic, integrative approach that targets concerns from multiple angles for the best outcomes. Therapy with LGBTQ+ youth might include

• Emotionally Focused Individual Therapy

• Person-Centered Therapy

• Internal Family Systems Therapy

All teens deserve a space where they can become the truest version of themselves without judgement. I provide grounded support to help LGBTQ+ teens thrive.