Teen Anxiety Coaching Intensive
A time-limited, neuroscience-informed anxiety coaching program for adolescents ages 14–18.
Teens who experience anxiety, panic, spiraling thoughts, or dissociative sensations often feel at the mercy of what their body and mind are doing. This program is for adolescents ages 14 to 18 who are ready to learn how to respond differently when anxiety shows up.
Program structure
The teen coaching sessions are intentionally designed around your teen’s specific anxiety patterns, goals, and challenges.
One parent intake session, which may also include the teen
One hour of individualized preparation and session design
Four coaching sessions with the teen
A written summary of strategies, tools, and next steps.
One follow-up teen session, which often includes parents
Up to one hour of follow-up support via text or email during the window of service
Brief consultation with an existing provider (with consent), if requested
This package includes approximately 8 to 9 total clinical hours, concentrated into a focused, time-limited intervention.
What’s included in the Teen Anxiety Coaching Intensive:
Who this is for
This coaching intensive is a good fit for teens ages 14 to 18 who:
Experience anxiety, panic, spiraling thoughts, or dissociative sensations
Fear anxiety itself and avoid situations because of it
Struggle with school demands or perfectionism when anxiety is high
Withdraw from friends, activities, or things they used to enjoy
Understand anxiety conceptually but don't know how to respond in the moment
Teens must be motivated and willing to do the work.
This program requires participation, practice between sessions, and openness to applying skills when anxiety shows up. Parents must also be willing to examine and adjust responses that may unintentionally keep anxiety going.
What often keeps anxiety stuck
For many teens, anxiety itself is not the core problem. Their relationship to anxiety is.
Common patterns that maintain anxiety include:
Trying to escape or push away anxious sensations
Spiraling into worst-case thinking
Seeking reassurance from parents or others
Avoiding situations that trigger anxiety
Parent responses that are meant to help but unintentionally exacerbate anxiety over time
Over time, these patterns limit independence, confidence, and full engagement with daily life.
The approach behind this work
The Teen Anxiety Coaching Intensive is grounded in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), an extensively researched approach to adolescent anxiety.
ACT works by building the capacity to respond flexibly when anxiety shows up: to notice it, understand what is happening in the nervous system, and choose a response based on values rather than avoidance. Rather than teaching teens that anxiety must decrease before they can act, ACT changes the relationship to anxiety itself. The goal is not to feel less anxious. It is to be less controlled by anxiety.
In this program, teens learn:
Why anxiety sensations feel urgent and convincing
How the nervous system can stay activated even when there is no real threat
Why trying to suppress or control anxiety often makes it stronger
Understanding this helps teens stop personalizing anxiety and start responding to it differently.
Research consistently shows that experiential avoidance, the tendency to escape or suppress unwanted internal experiences, is one of the primary mechanisms that keeps anxiety going. ACT targets this directly. Randomized controlled trials have demonstrated ACT's effectiveness for adolescent anxiety, including panic, generalized worry, and social anxiety, with gains that hold over time. (Hancock et al., 2018)
The teen sessions are also informed by behavioral research on parental accommodation, the well-documented pattern in which parental attempts to reduce a teen's distress unintentionally reinforce avoidance and strengthen anxiety over time. (Lebowitz et al., 2020) Parent alignment is built into the program structure because research shows it is one of the most reliable predictors of whether teen gains stick.
What teens will gain
This program is not emotional processing or symptom tracking.
The focus is on:
Anxiety and nervous system literacy
Real-time strategies for responding when anxiety shows up, not just when things are calm
Greater ability to face situations rather than avoid them
Greater flexibility and confidence under stress
Skills that hold up when daily demands are high
The goal is not to eliminate anxiety, but to increase capacity and engagement even when anxiety is present.
The role of parents
Parents are a meaningful part of how anxiety gets maintained or resolved. Parents participate in the intake and follow-up sessions and are included throughout to:
Recognize accommodation patterns that keep anxiety going
Respond in ways that support independence rather than accommodating anxiety
Support skill practice once the intensive ends
Parent alignment is often what allows teen gains to hold over time.
How this fits with the Parent Intensive
Most families begin with the Parent Coaching Intensive, which focuses on stabilizing the family system and reducing patterns that maintain anxiety or escalation. The Teen Anxiety Coaching Intensive is recommended when:
Parents are already aligned and able to respond consistently
A teen is motivated and ready for focused skill-building
Additional coaching support would accelerate progress
Recommendations about sequencing are based on fit and readiness, and are discussed during the initial consult.
Teen Intensive FAQs
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No. The Teen Anxiety Intensive is a coaching-based intervention.
Although I am a licensed clinical psychologist, this service is delivered in my role as a coach and Board Certified Behavior Analyst. It does not involve diagnosis, psychotherapy, or treatment of mental health disorders, and it is not designed for crisis management or acute stabilization.
This work often complements ongoing therapy, psychiatry, or school-based supports. With consent, I can collaborate briefly with existing providers to support continuity.
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Yes.
This program is designed for teens who are willing to engage actively in the process. Participation includes showing up to sessions, practicing skills between sessions, and being open to trying different responses when anxiety shows up.
This is not a passive or parent-driven intervention.
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The Teen Anxiety Intensive is a good fit for teens who experience:
panic sensations, spiraling thoughts, or dissociative experiences
fear of anxiety itself and avoidance driven by that fear
shutdown or overwhelm under stress
reassurance-seeking or rigid coping patterns
difficulty applying insight or skills in real time
This work is especially helpful for teens who understand anxiety conceptually but struggle when emotions rise.
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Yes.
Much of my work involves supporting neurodivergent adolescents, including teens with ADHD and autism. The intensive is designed to account for nervous system differences, sensory sensitivities, and executive functioning challenges that can amplify anxiety under stress.
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It can.
This intensive supports teens whose anxiety interferes with daily demands, including school, particularly when stress is high. The focus is on helping teens build skills to respond differently to anxiety rather than enforcing attendance or managing crises.
Families dealing with acute school refusal or safety concerns may need additional or different supports, which we can discuss during the consult.
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The goal of this work is to increase flexibility and capacity under stress.
Teens often report feeling less overwhelmed by anxiety sensations, greater confidence in how to respond when anxiety shows up, and reduced reliance on avoidance or reassurance. Parents commonly notice increased engagement, follow-through, and independence over time.
Progress varies, but the focus is on changing the teen’s relationship with anxiety rather than eliminating it.
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Parents are an important part of the anxiety system.
Parents are included to reduce accommodation patterns, respond without excessive reassurance or escalation, and support skill practice once sessions end. Parent alignment is often what allows gains from the teen sessions to stick.
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You will receive a written summary of strategies and tools to support continued practice.
A parent follow-up session is included to review progress and adjust support as needed. Some families choose to pursue additional coaching on a limited, case-by-case basis if further support would be helpful.