Individual Therapy for Children and Adolescents
Supporting children, teens, and families navigating intense emotions and complex mental health challenges.
When a young person is struggling, it can feel like the entire family is holding its breath. Emotions escalate quickly, behaviours feel confusing or frightening, and strategies that once helped no longer work.
Many children and teens experience emotions deeply and intensely — doing their best with nervous systems that feel overwhelmed and coping skills that haven't caught up to what they feel. These struggles are not a sign of failure. They are signals that more support is needed.
Therapy looks different depending on age, needs, and family context. Some young people benefit from individual therapy focused on emotional awareness and coping skills; others need a more structured, skills-based approach with caregiver involvement.
Parents and caregivers are not the cause of a young person's distress — they are often essential partners in helping things change.
How Children, Teens, and Adolescents Are Supported
Care is grounded in evidence-based approaches and tailored to developmental stage, individual needs, and family context.
Young people are supported in learning how to:
Build emotion regulation skills to manage intense feelings more safely
Develop distress tolerance skills to get through crisis moments without making things worse
Strengthen relationships and boundaries through interpersonal effectiveness skills
Practice mindfulness to create space between feeling and reacting
Reduce self-harm, suicidal ideation, and other high-risk behaviours
Increase consistency within the family system so skills are reinforced outside the therapy room
Young people are not talked about or treated as problems to be managed — they are active participants in understanding what's happening and identifying what helps. When appropriate, parents and caregivers are involved so progress made in therapy is supported in daily life.
For teens reading this: This isn't a place where adults talk over you or decide everything for you. Your experience matters here, and your voice is taken seriously.
Support for Younger Children: DBT-C
For some younger children, emotional and behavioural challenges show up early and intensely. Outbursts, aggression, anxiety, rigidity, or difficulty tolerating limits can place significant strain on both the child and the family.
Dialectical Behaviour Therapy for Children (DBT-C) is a specialized, evidence-based treatment for children who experience significant emotion dysregulation and whose challenges have not improved with standard behavioural approaches alone.
DBT-C is highly parent-involved and typically includes:
Child-focused sessions teaching age-appropriate emotional awareness and coping skills
Structured parent sessions focused on validation, skill-building, and effective responses
Attention to family patterns that may unintentionally reinforce emotional escalation
Parents are not blamed or positioned as the problem — they are essential partners in helping a child develop the capacity to regulate emotions safely over time.
The goal is not to eliminate emotions or enforce compliance, but to support emotional development, reduce distress, and strengthen the parent-child relationship.
When a More Structured Approach Is Helpful: DBT for Adolescents
Dialectical Behaviour Therapy for Adolescents (DBT-A) is an evidence-based, skills-based treatment designed for teens and their families when emotions feel unmanageable and behaviours escalate despite prior support.
DBT-A is structured, practical, and collaborative. It teaches concrete skills across four core areas: mindfulness, distress tolerance, emotion regulation, and interpersonal effectiveness. Caregiver involvement is included when clinically indicated to support consistency, safety, and skill use at home.
Not every teen requires comprehensive DBT. Assessment helps determine what level of structure and support is the right fit.
What to expect from therapy for teens and children
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1. Free Consultation
A 15-20 minute conversation to understand what's going on, answer questions, and explore fit.
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2. Assessment and Planning
Early sessions focus on understanding the young person's history, current challenges, strengths, and goals within their family context.
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3. Skills-Based Therapy Begins
Therapy focuses on learning and practicing skills to support emotional regulation, safety, and relationships. Parent and caregiver involvement is tailored to each family.
Why Work With a Practice That Specializes in Youth Mental Health?
Specialized training and experience
Advanced training in DBT-C and DBT-A with extensive experience supporting youth and families in structured, skills-based settings.
Direct, respectful, and developmentally appropriate care
Honest and collaborative, grounded in respect for autonomy and lived experience.
Family-inclusive support
Parent and caregiver involvement is viewed as an essential component of meaningful change.
Support for complex presentations
Experience with emotion dysregulation, self-harm, eating disorders, trauma, and relational challenges, when previous therapy hasn't been enough.
Your Trusted DBT Therapist for Teens in Pickering & Durham Region
I'm Maggie Stein Jamieson, an Accredited Mental Health Social Worker specializing in DBT for adolescents. I've spent over 7 years working with teens and families facing complex mental health challenges, and I bring both professional training and lived experience to this work. If your teen is ready to build skills and you're ready to support them, let's talk.
Ready to Take the Next Step?
If your child is struggling and you're ready to try something different, book a free 15-minute consultation to discuss whether DBT for teens is the right fit.
Frequently Asked Questions
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If your teen is struggling with self-harm, suicidal thoughts, eating disorders, intense mood swings, or behaviors that are disrupting their life and your family, therapy can help. If you've tried talking, setting boundaries, or other approaches without success, specialized DBT for teens might be what's needed.
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Teens are often skeptical about therapy, especially if they've been forced into it before. DBT is different because it's skills-based and practical, not just talking about feelings. Many teens respond well once they realize they're learning tools that actually help them manage their lives. That said, some level of willingness is necessary. We'll assess readiness during the consultation.
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Yes, in most cases. I work with the whole system because teens don't exist in a vacuum. Parent involvement might include parent coaching, family therapy sessions, or learning how to support your teen's skill use at home. The level of involvement depends on your teen's age and situation.
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A full course of comprehensive DBT typically lasts one year. Some teens need more time, others less, depending on their goals and progress. This isn't a quick fix, lasting change takes commitment and practice.
Related therapy services
Depending on your family’s needs, other services within the practice may also be helpful:
Parent Therapy - support for parents navigating their own emotional load.
Family Therapy - strengthening relationships using Emotion-Focused Family Therapy (EFFT).
Group Therapy - skills-based and therapeutic groups supporting regulation and connection.
Comprehensive DBT Programming – a more structured level of care when clinically indicated.