Child, Teen, and Parent Support in San Marino

Therapy and parent support for child and teen anxiety, OCD, depression, school stress, avoidance, and stuck family patterns

In-person in San Marino, minutes from Pasadena, South Pasadena, and the San Gabriel Valley. Serving all of California via telehealth.

When Your Child Is Struggling, the Whole Family Feels It…

Your child or teen may be anxious, avoidant, shut down, reassurance-seeking, caught in rituals, refusing school, melting down, withdrawing, or relying on you in ways that no longer feel sustainable.

You may feel like you’ve tried everything: reassurance, consequences, compassion, limits, therapy, doctors, school meetings, routines, rewards, arguments, and late-night conversations that leave everyone exhausted.

Parents often arrive feeling confused and guilty.

Should you push harder?

Back off?

Offer more support?

Set firmer limits?

Wait it out?

Get more involved?

The answer is rarely simple. But when a child or teen is struggling, the whole family can get pulled into patterns that accidentally keep the problem going.

Therapy can help slow the pattern down, understand what is keeping it stuck, and create a clearer path forward.

A Systems-Based Approach

This isn’t a “drop off the kid and I’ll fix them” type of therapy.

When children and teens are struggling, parents and family patterns often matter. That does not mean parents caused the problem. It means parents are often an essential part of the solution.

My work with children, teens, and parents is informed by family systems therapy, CBT/ERP principles, ACT, and SPACE-informed parent support.

Depending on the situation, treatment may involve parent sessions, family sessions, direct work with the child or teen, or some combination of these.

The goal is not blame, shame, or judgment.

The goal is to help your child, and your family, feel better.

We May Be a Good Fit If Your Family Is Dealing With…

  • Child or teen anxiety

  • OCD, intrusive thoughts, compulsions, or reassurance-seeking

  • Avoidance, shutdown, or refusal to engage

  • School refusal or school-related anxiety

  • ARFID-related accommodation or food-related anxiety patterns

  • Parent accommodation that has become difficult to sustain

  • Repeated conflict around routines, responsibilities, screens, sleep, or independence

  • A child or teen who refuses therapy or says they do not need help

  • A family system organized around reassurance, avoidance, conflict, or crisis management

  • Failure-to-launch patterns in older teens or young adults

Parent Support and SPACE-Informed Work

For many child and teen cases, the most useful starting point is parent work.

SPACE, or Supportive Parenting for Anxious Childhood Emotions, is a parent-based treatment approach developed at the Yale Child Study Center. It helps parents reduce accommodation while staying supportive, calm, and connected.

This can be especially useful when a child or teen is anxious, avoidant, reassurance-seeking, resistant to therapy, or struggling with independence.

Parent work may focus on:

  • Understanding the cycle keeping the problem stuck

  • Reducing reassurance, rescue, avoidance, or accommodation

  • Setting clearer expectations and limits

  • Responding more effectively to anxiety, distress, or refusal

  • Reducing family conflict

  • Helping parents stay supportive without organizing the household around the anxiety

How Therapy May Help

Depending on the situation, therapy may help your family:

  • Understand the pattern keeping the child, teen, or family stuck

  • Reduce avoidance and increase meaningful action

  • Decrease reassurance-seeking, rituals, or accommodation

  • Create clearer expectations around school, sleep, screens, food, routines, or independence

  • Support parents in responding with more confidence and consistency

  • Improve communication and reduce repeated arguments

  • Help the child or teen build skills for anxiety, OCD, distress, or emotional regulation

  • Identify when additional support, testing, psychiatry, school coordination, or a higher level of care may be needed

Important Fit Considerations

I work selectively with child and teen cases.

Many of the child and teen clients I work with are referred directly by therapists, psychiatrists, psychologists, pediatricians, school counselors, or other colleagues who know me and understand how I work.

I am open to non-direct referrals, but because child and teen work often involves the larger family system, parent involvement, school dynamics, risk assessment, and careful questions of fit, I am selective about the cases I take on.

In all cases, I require at least one parent consultation session before beginning direct therapy with a child or teen. In some situations, more than one parent session may be recommended before deciding on the best treatment plan.

The initial 20-minute phone consultation is free. Parent consultation sessions are billed at my full clinical rate.

These parent sessions help me understand what is happening, assess whether I am the right fit, and make thoughtful recommendations about the next step. I cannot guarantee that I will take on a child or teen as an individual therapy client following these sessions.

Depending on the situation, my recommendation may be direct therapy with the child or teen, ongoing parent work, family sessions, couples therapy, psychiatric consultation, psychological testing, school-based support, a higher level of care, or another form of treatment.

For many child and teen cases, ongoing parent involvement is an important part of the work.

I am generally not the right fit for high-conflict custody situations or court-involved treatment.

I do not provide custody evaluations, reunification therapy, parenting coordination, or opinions about custody, visitation, parenting time, or legal decision-making.

My role is treatment, not forensic evaluation.

Fees and Location

I offer in-person therapy at my office in San Marino, minutes from Pasadena, South Pasadena, San Gabriel, and surrounding communities.

I also offer online therapy throughout California.

My standard fee is $250 per 50-minute session. Longer parent or family sessions may be recommended depending on the situation, and will be billed at my standard pro-rated fee.

I am a private-pay, out-of-network therapist and can provide superbills when appropriate. Not every insurance plan accepts superbills, and I cannot guarantee reimbursement, but I’m happy to provide more information about questions to ask your insurance carrier.

Schedule Your Free Consultation Call

If you’re interested in working with me, or want to learn more, the first step is to schedule a free 20-minute phone consultation.

We’ll talk briefly about what is going on, what you are looking for, and whether this feels like a good fit.

There is no charge for this call, and you do not need to be completely sure about therapy before reaching out.

Sometimes the consultation confirms that working together makes sense. Sometimes it helps clarify that another provider or type of support would be a better fit.

Either way, it is a simple place to start.

Schedule Your Free Consultation Call