Meet Sarah Allen, Online Teen Therapist
I’ve spent years working with teens who don’t always have the words yet. My job is to help them feel comfortable enough to find them.
My favorite aunt was a special education teacher, and watching how she was with her students, kind and funny and totally weird in the best way, is what first pulled me toward working with kids. After college I worked with kids anywhere I could, at summer camps in Hawaii, Germany, and Park City and on a sailing ship in the Caribbean, and I've been a licensed counselor since 2009.
I'm the oldest daughter with three younger brothers, a recovering perfectionist, and a former college athlete who was all in and really hard on herself. Quitting soccer in college was a big transition, because it had become such a big part of who I was. So when a teen tells me she's exhausted by something she used to love and can't imagine walking away from it, I get it.
Asking a teenager how they feel about something almost never gets them talking, but doing something together usually does, which is why my sessions are interactive and upbeat.
Qualifications:
-
Licensed counselor since 2009 · [LCPC, Idaho] · [LCPC, Illinois] · [LMHC, Washington] · [LPC, South Carolina]
-
Graduate training in school counseling, with experience in elementary and junior high schools
-
Bachelor of Science in Therapeutic Recreation
-
Intensive training in DBT and Adlerian family systems work, with CBT and solution-focused therapy in everyday sessions
-
National Certified Person Centered Thinking Trainer
-
Ambassador and Trainer, Charting the LifeCourse
-
Supervisor, Children's Developmental Disabilities Program, Idaho Department of Health and Welfare, since 2009
For teens
If you're the teen reading this, hi! These are a few things you'll probably hear me say a lot.
"What's taking up space in your brain today?"
I ask this pretty much every session, and there's no wrong answer. A test on Friday counts, and so does a feeling you can't put a name to yet.
"You don't have to believe everything you think."
Your brain can play tricks on you, like telling you everyone's mad at you or that you sounded stupid at lunch, so we catch those thoughts and check them before you just go with them
"If you could see into the future and everything was going great for you, what would be different?"
This is my version of the magic wand question, and your answer tells me way more about what you want than drilling you with twenty questions ever could.
"Just be."
Sometimes we all just need a minute, and not every session has to fix something, so some days we breathe, chill out, and talk about whatever comes up
My core values
We aren't broken.
I'm never going to try to fix you, and I don't have the answers about your life, you do. You're the expert on you, and I'm lucky enough to help guide you back to the things that make you, you.
I'm always on your side.
I tell you this at our first session and I keep telling you. The cool thing is that everything we talk about is confidential, apart from a few safety exceptions I go over at the start. So think of me like your own private diary.
Behavior is communication.
When a teen stops going to school or stays in her room, she's telling us something, even if she isn't saying it out loud. I never see that as a problem kid. We figure out together what it's telling us, because we have to name it to tame it.
Sometimes less is more.
More therapy and a packed schedule don't automatically mean better, and you already have plenty going on. We start weekly while things feel heavy, then move to every other week or monthly once you've got some tools that work for you.
Ways to get support:
getting started
If she's said she'll give therapy a try, I'd love to hear from you.
You can set up a free consult to tell me what's been going on at home and ask me anything about how I work, or send me an email if that feels easier to start with. If you're planning to show her this page first, that's a great idea, because I want her to know who she'll be logging on with before she ever has to And if you're the teen reading this, the scary part is almost over. The world needs you, and I'd love to meet you.