Individual Therapy for Teens

Adolescence is an absolute frigging whirlwind: without warning you’re driven to start deciding who you are, separate from the people who raised you, the people in your orbit — family, friend group, generational culture. Nobody can invent it for you, and whatever sense of yourself you do manage to create becomes so fluid and mercurial that it can result in worries that just won’t shut up, an unshakeable flatness weighing you down, the piercing sting of shame about the self encountered within anywhere it conflicts with basically anything else. Gender norms, sexual identity, values and beliefs, social or family expectations, who is getting called-out this week on Insta or TikTok. Body type, acne, BO, grades, college, early mornings and packed afternoons, backpack giving you back pain, best friend getting deadnamed. Your parents are on your last nerve, but you still want them to just 'get it' already.

You just don’t know where to turn to make any sense of it all. People want to fix you, tell you what to do more, less, differently, better. You’re tired of being told, you need someone different to hear the real questions, the uncertainty, the angst that seems somehow to come along with this totally bizarre middle-place between being entirely a kid and somehow rapidly getting closer to this whole “growing up” thing you’ve been hearing about for so long.

That’s where therapy comes in. Whether your parents are calling in or you’re a teen looking for yourself, therapy offers a supportive relationship that is an environment for growth without judgment, advice, or expectation. What we talk about belongs to you, exists in your own process of becoming. I believe the therapy relationship itself is the work — the safe space where healing and transformation happen.

I work with teens (13–17) who are navigating:

• Anxiety, depression, or a sense of feeling overwhelmed

• Intense academic pressure and perfectionism in a highly competitive school culture

• Social anxiety, isolation, or trouble connecting with peers

• Identity questions — gender, sexuality, or who they are outside others' expectations

• A strained or complicated relationship with a parent

• The added weight of navigating two cultures, immigration-related stress, or family expectations

• A family going through divorce, separation, or major change

• Feeling shut down or unable to put words to what they're going through

• The constant pull of phones, technology, and social comparison

Individual therapy for adolescents in Maryland,
Virginia, and California, offered via telehealth.