About ADOLESCENT PSYCHOTHERAPY
When a Teenager Stops Talking
Most parents notice the change before they can name it. Conversations get shorter. The bedroom door stays closed. Grades slip, or friendships shift, or a teenager who used to be easy becomes irritable over nothing.
Some of this is ordinary adolescence. Some of it is not. The difficulty is that from the outside, the two look almost identical and by the time a teenager is willing to say something is wrong, they have usually
been carrying it alone for a while.
Therapy gives them somewhere to put it that is not home and not school.
Compassionate Care for Teens.
What Adolescent Therapy Looks Like
They arrive with their own opinion about whether they want to be there at all and that opinion matters.
The first few sessions are mostly about whether a teenager feels this is a real conversation or another adult managing them. Dr. Hackman does not begin with a treatment plan. She begins by listening, and by being straightforward about what therapy is and is not.
From there the work varies. Some teenagers want practical tools for panic, sleep, or getting through school day. Others need space to work out who they are separately from their parents, their friend group, or the version of themselves they perform online. Most need both, at different times.
Sessions are fifty minutes, usually weekly, in Santa Monica or via Zoom.
Where Parents Fit In
Parents are part of this work, but not inside the room.
Dr. Hackman meets with parents separately at the start, and periodically after that to understand what is happening at home and to give guidance on how to respond. Many parents find these sessions as useful as the therapy itself, because the hardest question is usually not what is wrong, but what to do about it at seven in the morning on a school day.
What she does not do is report back on session content. A teenager who believes their words will be relayed home will simply stop talking, and the work stops with them.
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Years of Teen Therapy Experience
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Serving Santa Monica Continuously
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Confidential — Always
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First Session Free If You Don't Return
Key Points
What Adolescent Psychotherapy Can Help With
Empowering Resilience
Therapy gives teenagers the tools to navigate the pressures of adolescence with greater self-awareness, emotional regulation, and genuine resilience skills that serve them for life.
A Healing Space
Dr. Hackman creates a space that teenagers actually want to come to where they feel respected, heard, and free to be honest without fear of judgment from parents, teachers, or peers.
Transformative Support
From anxiety and depression to peer relationships, school stress, identity, and the consequences of family change Dr. Hackman provides expert, personalized support across the full range of adolescent challenges.
AREAS COVERED
Confidentiality: What Teens Should Know
What a teenager says in session stays in session. Dr. Hackman explains this clearly in the first meeting, along with the limits: if there is a serious risk to their safety or someone else’s, parents will be involved.
Those limits are set out at the start rather than discovered later. Teenagers tend to trust the process more when they know exactly where the line is.
FAQ
Help for Common Adolescent Therapy
This is common and not a reason to give up. Many teenagers agree to a single session on the understanding that they are not committing to anything further. Dr. Hackman often starts by meeting parents
alone to work out the best approach, including how to raise it at home without it becoming another argument.
No. Session content stays confidential, with one exception: if there is a serious risk to your child's safety or someone else's, you will be told. Dr. Hackman meets with parents separately to discuss progress and give guidance, without reporting what was said.
It depends on what brought your teenager in. A specific problem exam anxiety, a friendship breakdown may take a few months. Longer patterns around mood, identity or family change usually take longer.
Dr. Hackman will give you a realistic sense of this after the first few sessions rather than at the outset.
Yes. Sessions are available via Zoom as well as in person at the Santa Monica office. Many teenagers find video sessions easier to fit around school, and some speak more openly from their own room.