For many families on the treatment journey, it can become a whirlwind of programs, diagnoses, and clinical language. But at the heart of it, what’s often going on is heartbreakingly simple: The young person doesn’t know how to feel okay within themselves.

When I was 17, I had a meltdown over not being allowed to get my nose pierced. This is why “small things” feel so huge for teens.

There is great wisdom in a person’s resistance or refusal. This is why parts of me were afraid to heal.

For Teens: Understand what it means to feel at home in yourself, notice when you've drifted away, and learn how to bring yourself back.

How to break free from the exhausting cycle of trying to manage your teen's emotions and reactions.

Wilderness therapy is both a transformative opportunity and a complex challenge for teens and families. In this blog, I reflect on my own journey and share insights from a recent presentation at the NOLS Wilderness Risk Management Conference. Together with experts Christine Norton and Matt Matteini, we explored how this therapeutic model can honor client voices while navigating its own evolution.

Our teens can say hurtful, unfiltered, and intense things that are hard to hear. The way they’re communicating is reflecting their inner world.

Teenagers sense how you feel about them — and it is powerful to hold them in your perspective as brilliant, capable, and whole.

How tracking and honoring our nervous system helps us heal.

What teens need as they move through the threshold towards healthy adulthood.