Therapy Should Grow With You

A seven-year-old, a sixteen-year-old, and a twenty-two-year-old shouldn't receive therapy in exactly the same way.

Good therapy considers not only what someone is experiencing, but where they are developmentally, how they communicate, what matters to them, and what they actually need from the adults around them.

Children

Therapy may use play, games, art, stories, movement, imagination, and other creative activities to help children communicate, build emotional awareness, practice coping skills, and make sense of their experiences.

Teens

Teens can have space to explore emotions, identity, relationships, family, school, mental health, and what matters to them without every conversation becoming another lecture.

Therapy can help with college, work, relationships, identity, family dynamics, boundaries, burnout, decision-making, and figuring out what kind of life you actually want to build.

Young Adults

What Can We Work On?

Young people may come to therapy for:

• Anxiety and excessive worry

• Depression and low motivation

• Trauma and difficult experiences

• ADHD, autism, and neurodivergence

• Emotional regulation

• Anger and frustration

• Self-esteem and confidence

• LGBTQ+ identity and minority stress

• Gender identity and exploration

• School stress and academic pressure

• Executive functioning

• Friendships and social challenges

• Family relationships

• Bullying and rejection

• Grief and loss

• Major life transitions

• Boundaries and communication

• Perfectionism

• Burnout and masking

• Independence and young adulthood

• College and career transitions

• Feeling different, disconnected, or misunderstood

Sometimes there's a clear concern. Sometimes something has simply changed and nobody is quite sure why yet. We can start there too.

You don't need to have everything figured out before reaching out.

Maybe you've noticed your child withdrawing.

Maybe anxiety is starting to interfere with school, friendships, sleep, or everyday life.

Maybe emotions seem bigger than the tools they currently have to manage them.

Maybe your teenager has told you they want to talk to someone.

Maybe your child is exploring their gender or sexuality, and you want to make sure they have an affirming space.

Or maybe you have the sense that something isn't quite right.

You don't need to diagnose your child before contacting a therapist. Part of my job is helping us understand what's happening.

For Parents & Caregivers

When working with children and adolescents, caregivers are important. So is the young person's privacy.

Young people need to know that therapy isn't simply another place where an adult gathers information about them and reports it back home.

At the beginning of therapy, we'll talk clearly about confidentiality, its limits, caregiver involvement, and how we'll communicate with one another.

The amount of caregiver involvement may look different depending on the child's age, developmental needs, circumstances, and treatment goals.

The goal is not to exclude caregivers. It's to create enough trust for therapy to actually work while keeping the important adults appropriately involved.

Therapy Is Their Space, Too

What Does Therapy With A Child Look Like?

It might not look like therapy on television.

Children don't always sit down and announce: "I've been reflecting on the relationship between my anxiety and attachment patterns."

They might play. Draw. Build something. Tell a story. Invent a character. Beat me spectacularly at a game. Talk about school while doing something completely unrelated with their hands. And somewhere in all of that, they're communicating.

Play and creative interventions can help children explore experiences, recognize emotions, practice regulation, solve problems, communicate needs, and develop new skills in developmentally appropriate ways.

The activity isn't separate from the therapy. Sometimes it's how we get there.

Teen Therapy Without Another Lecture

Teenagers spend a lot of time being evaluated.

Grades. Behavior. Attendance. College applications. Sports. Social expectations. Family expectations.

And sometimes therapy accidentally becomes another place where an adult explains what they should be doing differently. That's not particularly interesting to me. I want to understand what life looks like from where you're standing.

We can talk about anxiety, depression, trauma, gender, sexuality, friendships, relationships, family, school, neurodivergence, the future, or whatever else is taking up space in your head.

You don't need to arrive enthusiastic about therapy. You don't even need to know what you want to talk about yet.

Trust takes time. We can start there.

LGBTQ+ & Gender-Affirming Therapy

Young people deserve spaces where exploring identity isn't automatically treated as a problem.

Therapy can provide room to explore gender, sexuality, relationships, coming out, family dynamics, belonging, minority stress, dysphoria, euphoria, or simply what different identities mean to you.

And being LGBTQ+ doesn't mean therapy has to be about being LGBTQ+. Sometimes a queer kid is anxious because they're queer. Sometimes they're anxious because they have three exams next week. Both deserve a therapist who can tell the difference.

As a queer and transgender therapist, I provide affirming care without assuming that shared identity means I automatically understand someone else's experience. Your identity is yours. My job is to give you room to explore it.

Neurodivergent-Affirming Therapy

Children and young people with ADHD, autism, and other forms of neurodivergence often receive a lot of messages about what they should do differently.

Sit still. Pay attention. Make eye contact. Stop interrupting. Be more organized. Try harder. Be less sensitive. Sometimes therapy needs to ask a different question: What does this person's brain actually need?

We can explore executive functioning, emotional regulation, sensory needs, masking, burnout, communication, social experiences, routines, transitions, self-advocacy, and strategies that work with someone's brain rather than constantly fighting against it.

The goal isn't to make someone appear less neurodivergent. It's to help them understand themselves and navigate their world more effectively.

When Childhood Experiences Follow You Forward

Young people can experience trauma too.

Trauma doesn't always look like someone constantly talking about what happened. It can appear as anxiety, avoidance, anger, shutdown, difficulty trusting people, changes in behavior, sleep problems, emotional overwhelm, numbness, or feeling unsafe even when the immediate danger has passed.

Trauma-informed therapy doesn't begin with forcing someone to tell their entire story. We can begin with safety. Connection. Understanding what's happening. Building ways to regulate. And gradually making room for experiences that may be difficult to approach directly. The pace matters.

Therapy Can Be Flexible

Young people don't all communicate or process in the same way. Neither should their therapy. Sessions may include:

Conversation
Sometimes talking is exactly what we need.

Play & Games
Games can create opportunities for connection, expression, skill-building, problem-solving, and some surprisingly meaningful conversations.

Art & Creativity
Drawing, storytelling, writing, visual mapping, character creation, and other creative approaches can help make internal experiences easier to explore.

Skills & Strategies
We can practice emotional regulation, communication, boundaries, coping, executive functioning, mindfulness, and other tools that can actually leave the therapy session with you.

Interests & Metaphor
Books, games, shows, music, characters, hobbies, and fictional worlds can give us another language for understanding real experiences.

Therapy doesn't have to look serious every second to accomplish serious work.

Virtual Therapy for Children

Virtual therapy can look different depending on a child's age, developmental level, attention, needs, and comfort with technology.

For some children and families, being at home can actually make therapy more comfortable. Favorite toys, art supplies, sensory supports, pets, and familiar surroundings are already available.

Sessions can incorporate movement, games, activities, drawing, objects from the child's environment, and caregiver participation when appropriate.

For younger children especially, caregiver involvement may play a larger role in helping skills and strategies carry beyond the therapy session.

We'll talk together about whether virtual therapy is an appropriate fit for your child.

Meet Carson

I'm Carson Eckard, LPC, NCC, a queer and transgender therapist providing virtual counseling throughout Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

My clinical background includes community and trauma counseling, with additional training and experience incorporating play and creative interventions into mental health treatment.

I work across the lifespan, with particular experience supporting children, adolescents, young adults, LGBTQ+ people, neurodivergent clients, and people navigating trauma and significant life transitions.

My approach is warm, collaborative, playful when appropriate, neurodivergent-affirming, LGBTQ+ affirming, and trauma-informed.

I don't expect young people to communicate like adults in smaller bodies.

Therapy should meet someone where they actually are.

Growing up shouldn't happen alone.

Every stage of life comes with its own challenges, questions, relationships, losses, discoveries, and possibilities. Therapy can offer a place to explore them.

Affirming online therapy for children, teens, and young adults throughout Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

Ascension Point Behavioral Health

Your journey, lifted.

hello@ascensionpointbh.com

(267) 291.4540

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Please note that all content on this website is not to be interpreted as therapeutic advice or a replacement for seeking professional support.