What to expect

While I can’t simply make your child easier to raise, I can help you find better ways to approach parenting. I used to think that erasing undesirable behaviors was my role, but that burnt me out. Now, I understand that most kids aren’t disordered; they are shaped by their families, surroundings, and experiences. All of those factors can be adjusted for the benefit of everyone in the family. Come to therapy prepared to work. It involves building new habits and committing to change. This won’t be effective if you expect results without making changes. I will help identify problems and teach solutions, but you need to take action to make those changes. Don't worry; we'll adjust until it feels doable.

Healing starts at home.

It may be a convenient slogan, but it’s true and I believe it. Whether you’re dealing with a traumatized or developmentally typical child, or whether your parenting or adult experience is triggered by your own childhood trauma, the home environment will have the most significant impact on behavior change for everyone in the family.

Are you ready to learn some things that will help you parent with more patience, less stress, and an informed perspective? Willful and disruptive offspring might feel like more than you signed up for, but you can do this.

We all want change to come sooner than later.

If the changes we want to see in our children come sooner, then let’s all thank God for his grace and mercy. If the changes come later, or seemingly never, let’s be grateful that you’re not unique within the struggles of raising children.

For especially challenging children, adolescents, and teens, my level of care might not be sufficient. There are options available for higher levels of care. We can discuss that as necessary.

Children who don’t meet criteria for such enhanced services but challenge our patience long-term may best benefit from a controlled home environment and parents who muster the strength to remain consistent. In cases like these where the child is not responding to therapeutic intervention, I will teach the parents effective ways to stay patient while responding to their children’s behaviors, and seek enhanced services as necessary.

If your child is responding to a trauma

Naturally I will treat the child based on his or her readiness to engage in treatment, and teach parents how to best support the child at home between sessions.

If your child is developmentally typical

I will teach the child effective communication, self-calming, and anger-management skills. I will also teach the parents how to effectively respond to the behaviors that are natural to humans, and how to ride the wave of developmental phases while keeping their sanity in tact.

Everyone is going to learn about the brain

This is therapy after all, and we’d be lost without a healthy dose of psychoeducation. We need to know about the brain so we can hack it.

The process

  • You’ll book a free 30 minute consultation where I tell you about my services, and we decide if I’m the right counselor for your situation before you spend any money.

  • I enroll you on my patient portal and send you intake documents over email. Then you book your assessment appointment.

  • This is a thorough interview of you, your needs, your life history, any factors that might be contributing to your needs, and all kinds of information that helps me create your clinical profile. Then I give you a diagnosis and we decide on treatment goals.

  • The treatment sessions begin, wherein each time we meet we address the goals you set during the clinical assessment. We try to work efficiently and economically to help you learn the skills you need to meet your goals. The number of sessions vary based on your needs and your progress.

  • As you meet your goals, we decide whether you need further treatment. We can end treatment if you feel ready, or we can continue. If your progress is slow or stagnant, we can keep trying, we can pause, we can end, or I can see if one of my colleagues might be a better fit.

  • This is what we’re aiming for. The moment you and I feel like you’ve met the goals you set out to achieve, or if you decide for any number of reasons that you need to end things or take a break. Ideally, we discharge when you’ve finished the work you started.

  • Roughly a month following discharge, you can expect a complementary check-in from me to see how things are going. The option will be yours to resume treatment or part ways.