Meet Our Child and Teen Therapists in San Jose and Redwood City

Hannah Ly, LMFT

Founder and Clinical Director

Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, LMFT #129711 · She/her · San Jose and Redwood City

I'm Hannah. I've worked with children since 2012, and I built this practice around one idea: behavior is communication, and connection comes before correction.

Before I was a therapist, I was a nanny for busy Silicon Valley families. Real households, school pickups, dinner, the 6pm crash when nobody had anything left.

I watched good parents snap at kids they loved, not because they weren't trying, but because nobody was helping them read what their child was actually saying. That became the job.

How I Work

Play therapy is the core of what I do, and it's the only work this practice was built around. With younger kids, I let the child lead. They pick what we do, and I pay very close attention to what they're telling me while they do it.

The same figures chosen every week, the story that gets started and abandoned, the glance over to check I'm still there. My main job is to see, and then to help you see it too.

With teens, it's drawing, games, and real conversation. I get curious about the person before anything clinical. And when something is sitting in the body that talking can't reach, the test panic, the thing that happened that they won't go near, I use Brainspotting.

With parents, it's coaching every four weeks, built into every case. You know your kid better than I do. My job is to tell you what I see in the room and help you understand what it means, because the therapy doesn't go far if nothing changes at home.

People who know me best describe me as warm, gentle, and playful. That's what I try to bring into the room with your child.

The Standard I Hold

I train our therapists myself and review every case weekly. Whoever your family sees here, you're getting the same approach, held to the same standard. Every therapist on this team is here because children and teens are their whole focus, not one population on a list.

Training and Credentials

Bailey Verhulst

Associate Therapist

Registered Associate Clinical Social Worker, ASW #141620 · She/her · Supervised by Hannah Ly, LMFT #129711

I work with young children, and three to six is my favorite age to sit with. A lot of the kids I see are too little to say what's wrong, so it comes out sideways. The three year old who detonates over the wrong cup. The five year old sent home from preschool twice this month. Some of my work is with neurodivergent children who have also been through something hard, where what helps a child process trauma has to be rebuilt for a nervous system already wired its own way.

A tantrum isn't defiance. It's a child who ran out of options before they ran out of feeling. Three to six is the age adults misread most.

At a first session I'll come out to you rather than ask a child into a room they've never seen. I'll bring a toy into the waiting area and sit down there with both of you. Nobody has to leave a parent on day one.

A session is going well when a child is playing something out. Kids brush my hair, hand me a figure and cast me as the bad guy, change the rules halfway through. When a body needs to come back down it's usually sand or water.

Early on I'm not looking for a breakthrough. Your child is the one doing this work. What I do is make the room safe enough and the hour slow enough that they can, and help you see what they're showing you.

Weekends are thrift stores, coffee, and outdoors as much as I can manage.

Education