Teen Therapy in Bergen County, NJ

• You stay involved, and your teen gets private time with the therapist, with safety always the exception.
• Therapy is built around cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and family work, with medication management from our prescribing providers when it is needed.
• Sessions are available in English, Spanish and Russian, and most major insurance plans are accepted.

Moodiness and a closed bedroom door are part of adolescence. The harder question is when ordinary ups and downs have turned into something more. NIMH guidance on child and adolescent mental health advises contacting a health professional when signs last weeks or months and interfere with daily life at home, at school or with friends. It also notes that the earlier treatment starts, the more effective it can be.

Among the signs NIMH lists for older children and adolescents are:

• losing interest in things they used to enjoy
• low energy, or sleeping much more or much less than usual
• spending more and more time alone and avoiding friends or family
• dieting or exercising excessively, or fearing weight gain
• smoking, drinking alcohol or using drugs
• risky or destructive behavior, alone or with friends
• self-harm, or thoughts of suicide

If your teen is hurting themselves or talks about suicide, get help right away: call or text the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988, or call 911 if your teen is in immediate danger. Do not wait for a routine appointment.

Teens come to counseling for many reasons, and often for more than one at a time. These are some of the concerns teens and parents most often raise.

Constant worry, avoiding situations that feel stressful, or sudden waves of panic can all be part of anxiety, in teenage girls and boys alike. When worry starts shaping your teen’s days, anxiety treatment can help them face it step by step, and our article on back-to-school anxiety looks at how it shows up around school.

The NIMH guide to teen depression describes feeling sad most of the time for a few weeks or longer, with trouble concentrating or enjoying the things that used to matter. It also lists irritability, pulling away from friends and family, dropping grades, and changes in eating or sleeping habits. Depression can be treated with talk therapy, medication, or a combination of the two, and depression treatment at Mental Care Plus can include both.

Pressure about grades, friendships and the future can build until a teen dreads school or starts avoiding it. Therapy looks at what is driving the stress and works on practical steps back into the school day. It can also help to talk with the school about what support is available.

A frightening event, a loss, bullying or ongoing stress at home can affect how safe a teen feels long after it is over. Our clinicians work from a trauma-informed approach, and trauma therapy gives teens a safe place to make sense of what happened.

Frequent arguments, explosive reactions or ongoing defiance can wear a whole family down. Anger management therapy gives teens tools for handling strong reactions, and parent guidance can help change the pattern at home.

NIMH includes smoking, drinking alcohol or using drugs among the signs that an adolescent may benefit from an evaluation. Our team includes a licensed clinical alcohol and drug counselor, and we provide substance use treatment together with care for anxiety, depression and other concerns in an outpatient setting. Teens who need detox or a more intensive program are referred to the right level of care.

Therapy can also help with friendship problems, self-esteem, worries about social media, ADHD, grief and loss, and life changes such as a move or a divorce. If something is affecting your teen, it is worth talking about.

Teen counseling starts with understanding your teen, not with a script.

CBT helps teens notice the thoughts that feed anxiety, low mood or anger, test them against the facts, and practice new ways of responding. For anxiety, it can include gradual, paced steps toward situations a teen has been avoiding. CBT is one of the main approaches our therapists use with teens.

Some teens feel emotions very intensely and find it hard to settle once they are upset. Our therapists can draw on mindfulness and on skills from dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), such as emotion regulation and distress tolerance, to give them practical tools. If a teen needs a comprehensive DBT program or a more intensive level of care than outpatient therapy, we help the family find the right program.

Depending on what your teen needs, our therapists also use approaches found across our practice, including motivational interviewing (useful when a teen feels unsure about change), solution-focused work, interpersonal therapy (IPT), acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) and supportive therapy. The approach is matched to your teen rather than the other way around.

You know your teen better than anyone, and you do not need to have all the answers before reaching out. A parent or guardian usually takes part in the first appointment. After that, the balance between your teen’s one-on-one time and time with parents depends on your teen’s age, the concern and what is helping. Many families also use family therapy sessions to work on communication and conflict together, along with parent guidance on how to respond at home.

If your son or daughter is 18 or older, they can book their own care through our adult mental health services.

Teens are more likely to open up when they trust that therapy is a private space. Before therapy gets underway, it helps for everyone to understand what generally stays between your teen and the therapist, what will be shared with parents, and why safety concerns are always the exception. We explain how privacy works in our practice to you and your teen at the start of treatment, and you can ask about it at any time.

The first appointment is a mental health assessment that usually runs 40 to 60 minutes. For a teenager, a parent or guardian usually takes part, and the questions are pitched to your teen’s age. You will talk about what has been happening, how long it has been going on and what you hope will change, and you will talk through the options for next steps together. Our current fees for therapy and assessments are published on our site.

Sometimes symptoms are severe, persistent or not improving with therapy alone. In those cases our prescribing providers, who see adolescents, can evaluate whether medication management might help. When medication is part of a teen’s plan, it is used alongside therapy, and we talk through the options and possible side effects with you and your teen.

If your teen is in immediate danger, call 911 or go to the nearest emergency room. If your teen is struggling or having thoughts of suicide, you or your teen can call or text the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988, or chat at 988lifeline.org. We also keep a list of emergency mental health resources. Mental Care Plus is an outpatient practice and is not a crisis service.

School, sports and family schedules can make regular appointments hard to fit in. We offer online therapy across New Jersey by secure video, so teens can have sessions from home. A quiet, private room helps your teen speak freely, and if video is not the right fit, sessions can move to our office.

Our office is at 560 Sylvan Avenue, Suite 2115, in Englewood Cliffs, and we see teens from across Bergen County in person and from anywhere in New Jersey by video. Our team includes licensed social workers, a licensed professional counselor and prescribing providers, so therapy and medication management can happen in one place, and sessions are available in English, Spanish and Russian. You can meet our clinicians before you book. We are open Monday to Friday, 9 AM to 6 PM, and on Saturdays by appointment only.

We welcome teens and families from towns across Bergen County, including:

We accept most major insurance plans, so teen therapy is often covered as a standard outpatient behavioral health visit: