HOW I WORK
My Approach
Teenagers can tell pretty quickly when an adult is following a script. I don't expect someone to walk into my office ready to open up just because they're in therapy. We start by building trust, understanding what's actually going on, and figuring out together what might help.
My work draws primarily from Narrative Therapy and Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), but the relationship comes first. The approach should fit the person, not the other way around.
That connects beautifully to everything else you're building.
WHAT IS IT?
Narrative Therapy
Narrative Therapy is built on a simple idea: you are not your problem. The problem is the problem. Instead of treating anxiety, conflict, or a hard season as something wrong with someone, we look at the story they've been telling about it — and how that story might be keeping them stuck.
In practice, that means helping a teenager separate themselves from a label ("I'm just an anxious person") and start noticing the parts of their story that show something different — resilience, values, moments they've handled things well. The goal isn't to ignore what's hard. It's to help someone author a fuller, truer version of their own story than the one the problem has been telling.
WHAT IS IT?
Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)
DBT was originally developed to help people manage intense emotions, and it's built around a core idea: two things can be true at once. Someone can be doing the best they can, and still need to build new skills. Both are held at the same time, instead of one canceling out the other.
In practice, DBT teaches concrete, practical skills in four areas: staying present (mindfulness), getting through a hard moment without making it worse (distress tolerance), managing intense feelings (emotion regulation), and handling relationships and conflict (interpersonal effectiveness). It's less about talking through the past and more about building tools for right now.
ALSO A PART OF THE TOOLKIT
Different people need different things.
Narrative Therapy and DBT are the approaches I draw from most often, but they're not the only tools I use. Depending on the person and what we're working on, I may also draw from:
Mindfulness-Based (MBCT)
Helping someone find their own reasons for change, rather than being told what to do.
Person-Centered
Using present-moment awareness to notice patterns before they take over.
Motivational Interviewing
Following the client's own sense of what they need, rather than a fixed agenda.