I provide psychotherapy for children and adolescents using a relational approach that addresses resilience, coping mechanisms, and major sources of anxiety. Many of the children and adolescents whom I work with are dealing with problems such as: depression, phobias, the emotional aftermath of traumatic events, anxiety symptoms, adjusting to family stressors, and various school-related difficulties. Other reasons that children and adolescents often come to see me include concerns that they have about identity and self-image. Sometimes, these can include questions that a child or teen might have about gender, sexual orientation, peer relationships, and coming out.

The type of psychotherapy that I offer focuses on increasing and promoting awareness of what goes on inside a child’s or adolescent’s mind, helping him or her to verbalize troubling emotions, and developing ways to interact more openly with peers and family. This is not a behavioral form of therapy, although this approach aims at supporting long-term emotional adjustment and getting psychological growth back on track when it has fallen off.

I also offer parent consultation to parents and caregivers. Examples of this consultation include: complications around divorce, relocations, school choices, understanding the implications of a psychological assessment, dealing with a chronic illness, and defining rules and limits in a household. Similarly, in this kind of consultation, I explore the patterns of relationships within a family to locate growing edges as well as significant nodes of resilience.

I am certified as a Jungian child and adolescent analyst, a kind of certification that means I am curious about unconscious dynamics and the meanings that we make in our relating to one another. I have taught and supervised other psychotherapists, psychologists, and psychiatrists about child and adolescent development for over twenty years. I frequently draw on my experience of 14 years leading a private school for children and adolescents with emotional and learning differences.