Middle school and high school are times when young people are trying to figure out who they are and want to be, but they often have very little control over their lives and choices. It’s a complex time socially, academically, and emotionally. It can be lonely, isolating, and overwhelming. My goal with teenagers is to help them believe that whatever they are going through, they do not have to do it alone.

Before going into mental health, I taught high school English, and my time in the classroom was invaluable experience that also informs my work as a therapist working with teens.

I provide treatment for a variety of presenting issues, including anxiety, depression, ADHD, stress management, identity, self esteem, peers and relationships, family conflict, academic challenges, organization and executive functioning, grief and loss, and trauma.

I draw from different therapeutic approaches in my work with teens and pre-teens, including:

• Cognitive Behavioral Therapy: CBT is a treatment approach that helps you recognize negative or unhelpful thought and behavior patterns. CBT aims to help you identify and explore the ways your emotions, thoughts, and actions are connected and influence each other. Once you notice these patterns, you can begin learning how to change your thoughts and behaviors.

• Dialectical Behavior Therapy: DBT informed therapy includes teaching skills to help respond to strong emotions. These skills are Mindfulness (the practice of being fully aware and present in this one moment); Distress Tolerance (how to tolerate pain in difficult situations, not change it); Interpersonal Effectiveness (how to ask for what you want and say no while maintaining self-respect and relationships with others​); and Emotion Regulation (how to change emotions that you want to change).

• Acceptance and Commitment Therapy: ACT is a psychological intervention that uses acceptance and mindfulness strategies, together with commitment and behavior change strategies, to increase psychological flexibility. Psychological flexibility means contacting the present moment fully as a conscious person, and based on what the situation affords, changing or persisting in behavior in the service of chosen values.

• Creative and Expressive Therapies: may include art, drama, music, and play, to help the client identify and process feelings and experiences.

• Animal Assisted Play Therapy: play has benefits for people of ALL ages. Animal Assisted Play Therapy involves Rogue, our therapy dog, in the systematic inclusion and encouragement of play and playfulness as the primary means of expressing feelings, developing relationships, and resolving psychosocial problems.