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You aren’t sure when things got so bad…

You’ve been hard on yourself for as long as you can remember. Lately, it feels like you’re dragging yourself through life rather than actually living it. You’re exhausted from the constant self-doubt, worrying, and feeling like nobody knows the real you. If you’re being honest, sometimes you don’t want to keep going like this anymore and it scares you. You know things have to change, but it’s been bad for so long that you have no clue how to get back to your old self.

You're about to be so back

*

You're about to be so back *

I’m here to tell you that things can get better.

I’ve worked with dozens of teens just like you who felt hopeless, sad, and overwhelmed. Not only that, I’ve been there myself. Falling down the rabbit hole of self-hatred and self-harm that comes from feeling like you have no other option isn’t crazy or dramatic. How you feel makes perfect sense. I trust that you have everything inside of you to find your way forward.

In therapy, I can help you remember what you like about yourself, get to know the best parts of who you’re becoming, and get brave about taking the right next steps for you. We talk about the things you can’t say to anyone else—the things you hate to admit to your parents, your friends, and even yourself. I believe that if we can find ways to be honest about what we really feel and make room for accepting ourself for who we actually are instead of the person we wish we could be, we’re able to stop wasting time and energy beating ourselves up and actually get what we want.

If you’re reading this and thinking “that sounds great in theory, but I still feel anxious about all of this,” I totally get it. Therapy is a big step and I’m just a random adult from the internet. Let me give you a little bit more info about how therapy usually goes so that you can think about if this might be right for you.

Start Now
Sign that says 'Step 1 Parent Consultation' with a checkered border at the bottom.

Step 1: I talk to your parents and have them tell me a little bit about what they’re noticing from you. You won’t be there for this conversation, but don’t worry—you’ll get to share your side of the story when we meet and I’ll fill you in on exactly what your parents shared with me.

Step 2 of a trial session, with a checkered pattern at the bottom, on a pale green background.

Step 2: We meet! (This is my favorite part). You come into the first session with your parents, and we talk about what everyone can expect from therapy so that we’re all on the same page about who is in charge here (hint: it’s you). Your parents hang with us for 15-20 minutes and then, if you’re comfortable, we have the rest of the session together with just you and me.

An illustration with a green background displaying a white arch shape. Inside the arch, the text reads 'Step 3' in large, stylized font, followed by 'DECISION TIME' in smaller font. The bottom of the arch features a black and white checkerboard pattern.

Step 3: You decide if you want to see me again. If the vibe is off or you decide you’re actually not ready for therapy, that’s absolutely fine. I’ll work with your parents to support whatever you decide. Nobody is forced to stay in therapy with me at any time.

A sign with a rounded top, displaying 'Step 4' with 'THERAPY!' written below, and a checkered pattern at the bottom.

Step 4: If you decide that the vibe is right, we keep seeing each other. We work on what you want to work on and talk about what feels right to you. You decide how quickly or slowly topics get brought up. Your pace is the right pace, and I trust you to make the best choice for yourself week to week. If you’re okay with it, I might work with your parents or school counselor to help you beyond our sessions together, but I will never do this without your permission. If things are going well, you’ll see me for a while and then realize one day that you’re feeling good to handle things without me and I send you off to live your beautiful life.

Still have questions? Here are some of the most frequently asked questions that I get from teens:

  • For the most part, everything that you and I say to one another in our sessions stays between you and I. There are a few notable exceptions to this that you need to know about. Those exceptions are:

    ·      You tell me that you’re going to seriously hurt or kill yourself

    ·      You tell me that you’re going to seriously hurt or kill someone else

    ·      You tell me that someone else is hurting you (someone at school, church, sports, etc).

    In all of those cases, I am what’s called a mandated reporter, which means that I have to tell someone else that this is happening in order to keep you and other people safe. Outside of these exceptions, the only time that what we talk about will be shared with other people is if you request that I share it or I get your permission to share it. I will never share information about you without discussing it with you first, even if it’s one of those exceptions above and I have to do it.

  • In my experience, teenagers tend to be a lot smarter and better informed than adults think that they are. If there was a quick fix to feeling better, I’m willing to bet you would have already done it by now. You’ve probably tried a lot of different things to help you. Maybe some worked, maybe some didn’t, or maybe you know all the right things to do and just can’t bring yourself to actually do them. In therapy, we’ll talk about what’s working and figure out some things that might help you specifically based on your personality, strengths, preferences, and what you’ve learned about yourself so far in your life. I trust you to lead us where we need to go and we don’t need any generic coping skills to get there.

  • Ah, excellent question! The short answer is that you don’t know if you can trust me. And you won’t know that for a while. I can sit here and say “this is a safe space” and “you can tell me anything” and, honestly, that’s mostly meaningless. For you to know if you can trust me, I have to prove to you that I’m trustworthy. That takes time. It’s totally normal to be unsure about if you trust me at the beginning of our time together and even to question it during therapy. Trust isn’t like a light switch that is either on or off. It’s a process that we have to go through together.

  • The longer I’m alive, the less sure I am that there is such a thing as normal. Also, this is hard to answer honestly without knowing you, but I can say that of all the people I’ve ever worked with, I’ve never met anyone who wasn’t 100% human. I’m not sure what it means to be “normal,” but I am sure that asking that question of yourself is a good sign that therapy might be able to help you figure out how you define normal and what it means to think of yourself as not being that thing.

  • I don’t have the power to force you to do anything. I also don’t see self-harm as an inherently bad or shameful thing that you absolutely need to stop doing. Self-harm doesn’t necessarily mean that you want to die. In fact, lots of teens who self-harm are doing it to help them stay alive! So, it can be a useful coping tool, and I will honor its place in your life. In my experience, the vast majority of teens who come to see me because they’ve self-harmed one or more times tend to find their way to different ways of coping, or we work through the thing that’s bothering them to the extent that they don’t need to self-harm anymore.

  • I hear this a lot! Again, I can’t force anyone to do anything. That said, your relationship with your parents definitely has a huge impact on your life. While I really value you having a space that is 100% yours where you can be heard and seen as you like, sometimes it’s helpful to bring parents into therapy with us from time to time so they we can improve your life at home. To be clear, this isn’t family therapy and you have a choice about if, when, and how we do this. Sometimes, parents get to see that therapy can be really helpful from watching you grow in therapy and start their own therapy with a different therapist. If things are not great at home, there are many ways to make that better. We’ll figure out the best way forward for you.