Services
Teen Therapy
You’re Noticing More Than They’re Saying
You figured out something was wrong before your teen could say so.
You did it the hard way, by reading grades and moods and the tone of a two-word answer, then guessing at what all of it added up to.
Some of what you’re seeing is adolescence doing exactly what adolescence does.
Some of it isn’t, and there’s no reliable way to tell one from the other from where you’re standing.
The Changes You’re Seeing Don’t Always Tell the Whole Story
Anxiety at this age shows up as perfectionism, irritability, panic, a kid who can’t get through the school door, or avoidance that looks a lot like laziness from the outside.
Or as the sense that everyone else somehow got instructions for this and your teen didn’t.
ADHD and other neurodivergent traits get louder as school starts demanding more organization than your teen has ever had to produce.
Underneath any of it: trauma, depression, loneliness, cultural expectations, questions about identity, or a pressure to succeed that nobody in your house set out to apply. Sorting out which one it is starts with you.
Hand Us the Whole Picture Before Your Teen Comes In
The first conversation happens with you, before your teen meets anyone.
We want what changed, when you first noticed it, what you’ve already tried, and the thing you suspect but haven’t said out loud.
That conversation decides which of our clinicians your teen sees, and several of them work regularly with adolescents.
From there the therapist starts over with your teen and works out what your teen wants help with, which is where your role changes.
Stay Close Without Standing in the Room
Your teen’s hour belongs to your teen.
Inside it, our clinicians work with CBT, DBT-informed strategies, trauma-focused approaches, expressive arts, relational therapy, and play-based techniques when a teen’s development calls for them.
We account for family systems, school demands, neurodivergence, and culture, because an adolescent’s life doesn’t arrive in separate pieces.
You’ll hear at the start what comes back to you and what stays between your teen and their therapist, and your teen hears the same from us. Nobody is left guessing later.
Your Teen Learns to Read Themselves
Most parents arrive hoping for a teenager who’s easier to live with, and that’s a fair thing to want.
What therapy builds runs deeper and takes longer.
Your teen learns to read their own signals, put words to something before it gets loud, ask for what they need, and tell the difference between a rough week and a real problem.
That’s what they take into the next school year, the next friendship, and the decisions nobody will be standing there to help with.
Bring Us What You’ve Noticed
We see teens ages 13 to 17, in our Arlington office and by video.
A consultation starts with your account of the last several months, including the parts that still don’t add up.
Tell Us Where You’d Like This to Move
You don’t need the whole thing figured out before you write to us.
Some people know exactly which kind of therapy they want. Others know only that something isn’t working anymore, and that’s enough to start with.
Tell us what’s been going on, what you’ve already tried, and what you’d like to feel different. We’ll think it through with you and point you toward the therapist and the approach that fit.
You’ve done plenty of understanding already, and now it’s worth finding out what gets it moving.