Before You Start
A few things worth thinking through before therapy begins — about AI, about what counseling and therapy actually are, and about how I handle privacy.
Where AI helps — and where a person has to be in the room.
This matters extra when we're talking about kids.
Where AI can be useful
For adults and older teens, AI can be a reasonable tool for the more practical edges of therapy — tracking moods, working through a thought record, practicing a skill between sessions with a human therapist. The work in those moments is structured, explicit, and language-based, and a tool can hold some of it.
Where a human presence is essential — especially with children
A child cannot attach to a machine. A child cannot play with a machine the way they can play with a person. A child cannot be human with a machine — and being human is exactly what they're learning to be. Between three and thirteen, language is the most underdeveloped part of who they are. The deeper, older, more important things — connection, attunement, the body's sense of safety, the knowing that comes from being known — all live in the space between two nervous systems. Not in the words.
Therapy with a child is built on that. The relationship is the medicine. A grown-up's quiet, attentive, attuned presence is what allows their inner world to come forward. AI is, by design, language-first — a child's most fragile and least-developed channel. It is far more likely to mimic a kind of help than to offer the real thing, and at this age that gap matters enormously.
Connection is the work
Decades of clinical experience and research point to the same thing: the relationship between therapist and child is the strongest predictor of whether therapy actually helps. For children, who are still learning what a safe adult relationship even feels like, that relationship isn't a nice-to-have. It is the therapy.
Two different traditions, two different directions.
People use these words interchangeably. They don't mean the same thing.
Counseling
Counseling, in the way the word usually gets used, is closer to behavior modification — practical strategies, advice, structured plans for a particular situation. It can be useful for adults sometimes. But for a child, counseling has limited reach. Their behavior is rarely the actual problem. Their behavior is a signal. Trying to modify the signal without listening to what it's saying tends not to do much, and sometimes makes things worse.
Therapy
Therapy is different. Therapy works with the inner world — and for a child, the inner world is where everything important is happening. It's where their experiences live before they have language for them. It's where attachment is built. It's where imagination, fantasy, and meaning take shape. Therapy is essential to a child precisely because that inner world is where they need to be met.
With children, that meeting happens through play, through sand tray, through somatic and body-based attention, and through the relationship itself. It often takes longer than counseling. But the changes tend to hold, because they happen at the level where they actually need to happen.
Which does your child need?
Both have their place. But for the kinds of difficulties that bring most families to me — anxiety, attachment issues, trauma, big emotional reactions, patterns nobody can solve — therapy, not counseling, is what reaches them. We can talk about which makes sense for your family when you reach out.
Your family's information stays yours.
I take this seriously. Here's what I actually do.
My approach
My earlier work with high-profile clients in Seattle taught me something important: privacy isn't just about HIPAA compliance — it's about how a practice is built. I've structured mine with real protections, not minimums.
I maintain two office locations — one in a professional building, one in a private ADU at my home — which gives families the option of anonymity if that matters.
Records and consultation
When I need to consult with another professional — a pediatrician, a school counselor, another therapist — I share only what's clinically necessary, never identifying details, and never with someone you might encounter. They're bound by HIPAA; I hold myself to a higher standard.
The state requires I keep some basic information on file. I store nothing digitally — records are offline, physical, and encoded. I maintain sole control over your child's Protected Health Information.
Diagnosis is your choice
A diagnosis exists for insurance or your own use — it is not required for therapy. Many of the children I see do not need one. If you want one for school accommodations or other reasons, we can do that. If you don't, we don't. And if you want to explore what a diagnosis might mean without anything going into a record, that conversation stays between us.
Confidentiality with your child
This is different from adult therapy and worth understanding: children need a space that feels safely their own for therapy to work. I don't give you a play-by-play of what your child built in the tray or said in session. I will tell you themes I'm noticing, progress and stuck points, how to support them at home, and anything related to safety — always. (Full detail on this is in the For Parents page.)
Where we land is up to you
Some families need detailed records — for FMLA, insurance, or continuity with other providers. Others want minimal documentation. Where we land on that spectrum is your decision. I take that right seriously.
Still figuring it out?
That's normal. Reaching out is not a commitment. If you want to talk through whether your child needs therapy, or what kind, I'm happy to have that conversation.