Sara Brinkerhoff, Licensed Social Worker

My treatment approaches are person-centered and strengths-based. I also incorporate evidence-based approaches and attachment theory. I have experience delivering dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) informed services and use some strategies in my work, but I am not formally trained in it. I utilize some cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) focused strategies as well. My ideal client would be an older adolescent (16-18). Struggles with anxiety, relationship challenges and setting boundaries, and future planning. Their parent(s) are present, but there are disagreements about plans, and they are not as involvedsupportive as the student needs them to be. The client is struggling with identifying the positive supports in their life and needs help learning how to identify positive relationships and ways to decrease their anxiety. The client's goals are to learn better coping skills, decrease negative thinking, set better boundaries, and improve communication skills. Most of my experience over the past 3 years centered around working with high school students directly in their school setting. I recognize the pressure they are under to perform well and the confusion that students who are not interested in going to college experience in trying to figure out what their future may look like. Many adolescents are experiencing significant anxiety and distorted thinking about how they are performing and whether they will be successful after graduation. Some CBT and DBT-based strategies worked to help decrease those negative and distorted thinking patterns. Some adolescents benefited from learning better interpersonal effectiveness skills, and some benefited simply by learning what organizational habits helped them most. I have been able to help adolescents and their parents mitigate communication issues by learning to listen when each other are talking and how they can both set reasonable expectations for each other.

I understand how challenging this time in your life can be. You have a lot of ideas about your future, and maybe you aren't quite sure what the right path for yourself is. I also understand that your support systems, while important, can have a lot of opinions of their own that play into making these decisions more difficult. The important thing to realize and remind yourself of is that you don't have to make the "right choice" that determines the rest of your life right this second. You have a lot of options at your disposal, and while that can be overwhelming, it can also be eye-opening to things you had not considered before.