Children, teens & parents · Encino
Room to grow.
Room to be
understood.
Development is full of encounters: with other people, with new capacities, with limits, and with feelings that can be difficult to bear. Growing up changes children and parents alike. I offer analytic psychotherapy for children and teens, and work with parents who want a place to think about their child, themselves, and the relationship between them.
Talk about working togetherChildren
Play has
something to say.
Children do not always tell us what troubles them in words. They may show us through play, behavior, withdrawal, or the relationships they make.
In treatment, a game, a drawing, a story, or a moment of frustration can become a way to understand a child’s experience. I pay attention to what emerges in play and in our relationship, including feelings that may be difficult for the child to recognize or express.
We remain curious about what a difficulty means for this particular child, at this point in their development. What new demands are they meeting? What feels exciting, frightening, or difficult to manage? Work with parents is an important part of considering the child’s life beyond the consulting room.
Individual paths of development
A particular child.
A particular way
of meeting the world.
Children differ in how they experience sensation, direct attention, communicate, play, and form relationships. I take neurodiversity into account as we try to understand the person in front of us.
We consider the child’s own pace and capacities, the demands of their surroundings, and what helps them feel understood and able to participate. I am interested in how emotional life, relationships, and individual differences meet as development unfolds.
Our questions include what the child is experiencing, where growth feels difficult, and what kinds of support make further development possible.
Adolescents
Becoming yourself
can be complicated.
Wanting independence and needing support can exist at the same time. So can wanting to be seen and wanting everyone to leave you alone.
I offer teens a place to explore relationships, identity, shame, anger, sexuality, expectations, and the uncertainty of growing up. A teen does not need to arrive knowing how to explain what is happening.
We make room for their own questions and experience of therapy. At the beginning, we discuss privacy, its limits, and how parents will be involved, so that everyone has a clearer understanding of the work.
Analytic parent work
Parenting has
an inner life, too.
You can love your child and feel angry, helpless, disappointed, or frightened. Those feelings deserve somewhere to be thought about.
Parent work offers room to consider what your child’s experience stirs in you, how your own history enters parenting, and what happens when your expectations meet the child in front of you.
We can think about recurring conflicts, separation, closeness, limits, and the pressures of caregiving. Practical decisions may be part of the conversation; we also explore why particular moments become so charged or difficult to move through.
Parents may work with me on their own or together. Parent work can stand on its own, or be part of a child’s treatment. Your child does not have to be in therapy with me for us to meet.
Parenting together? Explore couples work ↗Finding a way to begin
Let’s think about
what is needed.
We begin by discussing what has led you to seek help and whose participation might be useful. The arrangement may involve individual child or teen treatment, meetings with parents, or work with a parenting couple.
My background includes clinical work with children and families, attachment and play therapy training, and ongoing psychoanalytic training at the Psychoanalytic Center of California. I bring particular interest in the emotional experience of illness, disability, caregiving, and dependency.
Frequency, parent involvement, and fees are discussed as we consider the treatment. My standard session fee is $225.
Begin a conversation
Tell me what
has been difficult.
Call to ask about treatment for your child or teen, or a place to think about your experience as a parent.
Call 818-305-5431 ↗A brief message with your name and callback number is enough. We can save the details for our conversation.
16260 Ventura Boulevard, Suite 415Encino, California 91436