Questions Parents Ask About Child and Teen Therapy

Sessions run $200 to $270 per session, depending on the therapist your family sees. Current rates for each therapist are listed on our rates page. Parent coaching every four weeks is part of every case and billed at the same session rate. We are private pay only. If you have out-of-network benefits, we provide superbills.

No, we do not bill insurance. We are private pay. We do provide superbills, which is the itemized receipt with the codes your insurer needs. If you have out-of-network benefits, you submit it and your plan reimburses you directly. A lot of our families do this and get a good portion back. Whether your plan pays out is between you and your insurer.

The deposit is non-refundable. It holds your appointment slot. If you cancel, that slot can't be given to another family, and the deposit is not returned. If you need to reschedule to a different date before your first appointment, email us and we'll do our best to accommodate. Canceling the appointment altogether forfeits the deposit.

No. We don't offer a sliding scale, and we don't hold reduced-fee spots. The rates are the same for every family. Sessions with the other therapists on our team cost less than sessions with Hannah, so that is the most affordable way to work with us. If that is still out of reach, say so on the consultation call and we will point you to lower-fee options in the area.

Yes, sessions are weekly, especially early on. Every-other-week from the start doesn't build the same relationship, and we don't space child sessions a month apart.

Tapering does happen, once real progress is made, as a step toward a planned ending. That's a clinical decision we make together.

One thing worth naming: "once the crisis is over" is often exactly when it matters most to stay. The crisis usually surfaced something bigger, and pulling back then is the most common reason families end up starting over.

No. Sessions here are weekly, so that's what we schedule. Vacations and illness happen and we work around those. If every other week is all your schedule allows long term, tell us on the call and we'll be honest about whether we think it will work for your child. For most kids it doesn't.

We understand the instinct, and honestly, dabbling doesn't work for children. Kids can tell when the adults haven't decided whether therapy is really happening, and they hold back too.

A few half-committed sessions can leave a kid worse than none, because their first experience of therapy becomes something that got interrupted.

If now isn't the right time, waiting is a legitimate choice, and we'll say so on the call.

Not the way that question usually means it. We help kids regulate big feelings. We're not here to shut kids down. A perfectly compliant, easy-going kid isn't a healthy kid. That's a kid rehearsing to become a shut-down adult.

Behavior usually settles, because the child no longer needs it to be heard. But the settling is a byproduct of being understood. It's not the goal, and we won't make it the goal.

Because the time is held for your child specifically. Inside 48 hours, that slot can't go to another family, so it stays empty.

There's a clinical piece too: a child who isn't sure therapy is happening doesn't show up to it the same way.

Real emergencies are different, and we'll reschedule within the week if we can. Work conflicts and forgetting are charged in full, for every family the same way.

Not for child and teen sessions. Those are in-person only, at our San Jose and Redwood City offices, because the room, the tools, and the physical presence are part of how therapy happens. The San Jose office serves families from Campbell, Cupertino, Saratoga, Los Gatos, Milpitas, and Fremont, and the Redwood City office serves Palo Alto, Menlo Park, Atherton, San Carlos, and San Mateo. Mountain View and Los Altos families are about equally close to both. Parent coaching every four weeks is done by video, which keeps scheduling easier for parents.

A lot of families who call us have tried therapy before. Usually the story goes something like this: the therapist also saw adults and couples, your child got worksheets, sessions that were only about stopping the behavior, or a lot of questions across a desk, and months in you still didn't know what they were working on. Or the therapist left, and everyone quietly stopped going.

That doesn't mean therapy can't help your child. More often it means it wasn't set up for a child. Here, children and teens are the only clients we see, and we start with what your child's behavior is telling you, not with getting it to stop. Younger kids get play therapy, because play is how they say what they can't put into words yet. Teens get real conversation, drawing, and games, not a clipboard. You meet with your child's therapist every four weeks, so you know what themes are coming up and what to try at home. And Hannah reviews every case, so no family's care rests on one person.

It won't change everything fast, and some weeks it will be hard to tell anything is happening. Tell us on the consultation call what happened last time. It helps us know what not to repeat.

It depends on your child. What brought you here didn't develop overnight, and it won't resolve overnight. On average, we work with families for about a year. Some families wrap up sooner; some come back after a break when something new comes up. Progress also isn't linear. You'll see real change, then a hard week, then change again. That's normal. It's not therapy failing.

A fair thing to want. You're handing your child to someone for an hour a week.

We don't give a session-by-session rundown, because your child needs to know the room is theirs. What you get instead is parent coaching every four weeks: the themes your child's therapist is seeing, what they mean, and what to try at home. Anything urgent, you hear right away.

If it doesn't feel like enough, tell your therapist. We can adjust.

An hour every four weeks, without your child, by video. We share what we've been noticing in your child's sessions, ask what's been happening at home, and give you something specific to try before the next one. It's a working session, not a progress report, and it's part of every case.

No. Your child can do real work in their sessions, but if nothing shifts at home, the progress doesn't hold. You can't outsource all of this to us.

An occasional scheduling conflict, we'll work with you. But coaching is part of what you signed up for, and it stays.

No. When it's up to the parent to decide, parents wait too long, or come in during a crisis, and the session turns into venting. Venting has a place, but it isn't coaching. Between sessions your child's therapist is tracking themes, what's underneath the behavior you're seeing at home, and every four weeks is the rhythm that connects the room to your house without reacting to every bad week.

You're the expert on your child. When a parent session is needed is a treatment decision, and that one's ours.

It isn't therapy for you, but it will ask you to change something, and change is hard. Some sessions are uncomfortable. That isn't a sign it's going badly.

For most families, no. The two do different things. Your child's sessions build their own capacity to process and regulate. Coaching helps you understand what they're carrying and change how you respond. Neither replaces the other.

Parents usually ask this wanting more visibility. The coaching session is your channel for exactly that.

Very. Parent coaching every four weeks is part of every case. Your child can make real progress in their sessions, but if the environment at home stays the same, it doesn't stick. The coaching piece is as important as your child's sessions.

It's common. Children don't know what therapy is, and what they imagine is usually worse than the reality. Most kids are fine once they're in the playroom, sometimes within minutes. You can tell them honestly: it's a room full of toys where someone gets to know you. That's actually true. If resistance continues past the first few sessions, we'll talk about what's driving it. Sometimes it's anxiety. Sometimes it's something worth knowing.

Talking isn't required. We work with teens while they're drawing, playing games, or doing something they're interested in. The side-by-side approach opens things up faster than sitting across from someone who's waiting for them to open up. Teens who say they won't talk usually do, once the pressure is off.

Ask us directly, in the next coaching session, and we'll give you a straight answer. When it feels stuck, it's usually one of these:

The change is happening somewhere you're not looking, usually in recovery time before frequency. What brought you in was the surface of something older, and the older thing takes longer. Things at home haven't shifted yet, and the room can only get so far ahead of that. Or it's us, and the fit needs to change. Say so. We'd rather hear it than have you quietly decide.

What we won't do is tell you it's going great when it's not.

The first signs are usually subtle. Not that your child stops struggling, but that the hard moments are shorter, or they come back to baseline faster. You might notice a small increase in frustration tolerance, or your child coming to you instead of melting down.

Therapy doesn't make everything smooth. The goal isn't a version of your child who never struggles. It's a child who has more capacity, and a family that understands each other better.

A lot of parents here were raised the same way, and we're not going to tell you it was wrong.

What we'd add: feelings that don't get named don't go away. They come out sideways, as anxiety, as Sunday-night stomachaches, as the assignment that can't be started because it might not be perfect. A child who can say "I'm nervous about the test" is a child who can then go take the test.

It's harder to do this for your kid if nobody did it for you. That's not a flaw. It's a lot of what parent coaching is for.

With adults, you sit and talk. Children don't process experience that way. Play is how they make sense of their world and communicate what they're carrying. In play therapy, the child leads. They choose what to play with and how. The play therapist's job is to watch, track what they're showing, and reflect it back in a way that helps them feel understood. It looks like playing. It's actually very deep relational work.

Play therapy

Brainspotting is a trauma processing approach based on the idea that where you look affects what you feel. Specific eye positions can access material held in the nervous system that talk therapy doesn't always reach. In a session, we locate a "brainspot" that corresponds with a stuck feeling or difficult experience, and your nervous system does its own processing from there. It doesn't require talking through the trauma out loud. Hannah uses Brainspotting primarily with teens, for anxiety, trauma, and experiences that are hard to put into words.

Brainspotting

No. We're therapists, not prescribers. If medication seems worth exploring, we'll say so and refer you to a child psychiatrist or your pediatrician. If your child already has a prescriber, we're glad to coordinate, with your written permission.

That depends on what your child is experiencing. Therapy and medication aren't competing options. Research consistently shows people do better when both are in place, if medication is appropriate. If it comes up, we'll talk about it and can refer you to a child psychiatrist if we think it would help.

Yes, and often that's the simplest setup, as long as the session stays focused on your child.

If it becomes a place to argue, we'll move to separate parent sessions instead. That's not a punishment, it's what makes the sessions usable, and plenty of our families are set up that way from the start.

Often, yes. Children do fine as long as both parents let the therapy happen. What we ask is that the disagreement stays between the adults, and we meet separately with each of you where that helps. We don't take sides, we don't write custody recommendations, and we don't testify voluntarily. If your family needs documentation for court, you need a custody evaluator, not us.

Yes. An associate has a master's degree and is registered with the California Board of Behavioral Sciences while completing the 3,000 supervised hours for licensure. Postgraduate work, not student training.

The difference from a licensed therapist is supervised hours, not training or approach. Every associate here was hired because they practice the way we do, and every case is supervised by Hannah directly. The rate difference reflects licensing status, not the standard of care.

The consultation is with Hannah, by design. The other therapists on our team don't run consultations; their job is the therapy in the room with your child, and matching a family to the right therapist is Hannah's call as clinical director.

If you're interested in a specific therapist, say so. Hannah trained them and reviews their cases weekly, so she can tell you exactly how they work and whether they're the right match.

Schedule a consultation and we'll figure it out together. Some families prefer working directly with Hannah; others are more flexible. Every therapist here practices the same approach, and Hannah is the clinical director for the whole practice. Her supervision doesn't change based on which therapist your child sees.

Rates and fees by therapist

Yes. Bailey Verhulst, ASW, is trained in AutPlay, play therapy adapted for autistic and neurodivergent children, and she sees kids at both our San Jose and Redwood City offices. We don't do autism testing or diagnosis, so if you need an evaluation we'll point you to a child psychologist. Therapy can start with or without a diagnosis. Ask for Bailey on your free 15-minute call.

Yes. Sabrina Yglesias, our bilingual child and teen therapist, provides child therapy, teen therapy, and parent coaching fully in Spanish or English at our San Jose office. Ask for her by name on your free 15-minute call.