Teen Therapy for Girls and Young Women in Atlanta and Across Georgia
For the daughter who's pulled back, and the parent watching it happen.
For parents of teen girls and young women, ages 13 to 22, who are watching their daughter struggle and aren't sure how to help. In-person in Atlanta or virtual across Georgia.
What you've been noticing that no one else has named
You've been watching her for a while now. Not in a way that requires alarm. In a way that requires attention. Something has been shifting, and you've been the one keeping track of it because you're the parent and that's what parents do.
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The version of her you used to know hasn't been around as much.
She used to come find you to tell you things. Now she goes to her room. She used to make eye contact when you asked about her day. Now the answer is "fine" and she's already moved on. You're not imagining the change. You're not being dramatic about it. You're just noticing what no one else is paying close enough attention to see.
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On paper, she's still doing everything she's supposed to.
The grades are still strong. She still has friends. She still shows up to the things she's supposed to show up to. To anyone looking from the outside, she's fine. You know she isn't. You've been watching her hold something for longer than a teenager should have to hold it on her own.
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You don't want to make it worse by pushing.
You've tried to ask. She's brushed you off, or she's said she's fine, or she's gotten irritated and you've decided not to press it. You don't want to be the parent who hovers. You also can't keep pretending you haven't noticed. You're trying to figure out how to be present without being intrusive, and it's exhausting.
She doesn't need you to fix it. She needs a place where she can put it down with someone who isn't you, isn't her friends, and isn't going to make it worse.
Why teen girls carry so much without saying it
Most teenage girls are managing more than the adults around them realize. Academic pressure that's escalated each year since middle school. Social dynamics that move at the speed of text messages and disappear without warning. A relationship to their own body, identity, and future that's being shaped by forces they didn't choose. Some of them are carrying race, gender, family expectation, or generational pattern on top of all of that.
And most of them aren't telling the adults around them, because:
Why she's not telling you
She doesn't want to worry you. She doesn't have the vocabulary for it yet. She's still figuring out whether what she's feeling is normal. She thinks you'll try to fix it, or get protective, or make it a bigger deal than she's ready for it to be. She's protecting your relationship by keeping some of it to herself.
Why she might not be telling her friends either
Teenage friendships are already complicated. She doesn't always know whose loyalty she has and whose she doesn't. Some of what she's carrying is too vulnerable to risk being shared. Some of it she doesn't fully understand yet, and naming it to a peer makes it more real than she's ready for.
A therapist who specializes in this age and gender is one of the few adults a teen girl can talk to who isn't carrying any of the weight of the rest of her life. That's the value. Not being one more voice telling her what to do. Being the one space where she doesn't have to perform for anyone.
How we work with teen girls here
Pacing matters as much as method. Teens are most likely to open up when no one is trying to pry them open.
Trust First, Then the Work
Teen girls don't open up because someone earned the right to ask the right question. They open up because they feel safe with someone who isn't trying to extract anything from them. The first few sessions are usually about her getting comfortable with the therapist, the room, the rhythm. Real work begins after that, often without her realizing it has.
The therapist doesn't push for disclosure. She doesn't ask leading questions designed to surface the issue parents reported. She lets the teen show up the way the teen shows up, and the issue emerges because the safety to name it does.
Developmentally-Attuned, Identity-Informed Therapy
The work integrates trauma-informed cognitive behavioral therapy, identity and self-esteem development, emotional regulation skill-building, and relational pattern work. The specific blend is matched to what the teen actually needs, not to a prescribed protocol.
For teens carrying significant trauma or anxiety, EMDR is available when the teen is ready and consents to it. EMDR with adolescents requires particular care around pacing and stabilization, and we don't introduce it until trust is solid and the teen herself wants to work that way.
Informed Without Being Inside the Room
The therapy is hers. What she shares stays between her and the therapist, with the standard clinical exceptions for safety. We hold periodic check-ins with parents to share general clinical impressions, give guidance on how to support her at home, and answer your questions, without breaking her confidentiality. This balance is what makes the work usable for the teen and informative for the parent.
Teen therapy at this practice is led by Lauren Francois, LCSW, who works exclusively with teen girls and young women ages 13 to 22. She specializes in this age and gender, not as one of many populations she sees, but as the focus of her clinical work.
Is teen therapy here the right fit?
The work at this practice is built for a specific kind of teen and a specific kind of parent.
Best fit for
Teen girls and young women ages 13 to 22
Teens struggling with anxiety, self-esteem, identity questions, or social dynamics
Teens who have pulled back from parents and aren't ready to fully name why
Teens carrying academic pressure that's started to cost them in other ways
Teens navigating race, identity, or family expectation in predominantly white or high-pressure environments
Parents who want their daughter to have a clinical relationship they don't get to manage
Probably not the right fit, at least not yet
Teens currently in acute mental health crisis requiring higher levels of care
Teens whose primary need is psychiatric medication management (we can refer)
Teens with active eating disorder behaviors requiring specialized treatment
Parents looking for someone to report back on what their teen says in session
What changes with teen therapy that actually works
These aren't promises. They're the kinds of changes families tend to report when the work fits.
She starts talking again, sometimes about things you didn't know she was carrying.
The reaction that used to take a whole afternoon to recover from stops escalating in the same way.
The anxiety that was running her starts to lose its grip on her decisions.
The develops language for what she's feeling, which means she stops having to act it out.
Her relationship with you shifts, often in ways you didn't expect to be possible at this stage.
She starts to trust her own judgment about what she needs.
The goal isn't to give you back the daughter she used to be. It's to support the one she's actually becoming.
If teen therapy isn't the right door, here are the others
Sometimes what looks like a teen-specific issue is part of a bigger family pattern. Sometimes what would help most is one of the parents getting their own support. Here's where else to look.
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Therapy for the Burnout No One Around You Sees
If you're the parent who has been holding everything together while watching your daughter struggle, you may need somewhere to put your own weight down. Supporting her well often requires being supported yourself.
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Couples Therapy When Talking Stopped Working
If the stress of parenting through this is showing up between you and your partner, addressing the partnership may relieve some of the pressure on the family system. The way you and your co-parent show up together affects what's available for her.
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Trauma Therapy for What Talk Hasn't Reached
If your own unresolved experience is being activated by watching her go through her version of yours, individual trauma work for the parent can change what's available to bring to the relationship with the teen.
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EMDR Intensives in Atlanta
If your daughter has experienced a specific trauma and is ready to do focused work, EMDR intensives may be appropriate for older teens with parent involvement. We assess this carefully during consultation.
You've already noticed enough to land on this page. The next step is a fifteen-minute phone consultation between Lauren and you. No intake form. No commitment. Just a conversation about what you've been seeing and whether this is the right place for your daughter.
Book a consultation for your daughter
The questions parents ask before they bring their teen in
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It can, with the right approach. Most teens come to therapy at least somewhat reluctantly. The first few sessions are designed to give her a real choice about whether she wants to keep coming, not just compliance with what her parents arranged. Once she experiences the relationship as hers rather than something being done to her, most teens shift from reluctant to engaged. If after a few sessions she genuinely doesn't want to continue, we'll tell you honestly so you can decide what to do next.
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The most useful framing is honesty without pressure. Tell her you've been noticing she's been carrying a lot, you're not trying to fix her or change her, and you'd like her to have somewhere that's just for her, separate from family. Don't promise it will be easy. Don't tell her what she'll talk about. Tell her she gets to decide what she shares and when. If you'd like, we can talk during the consultation about how to have this conversation with her specifically.
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Generally no, with important exceptions. Confidentiality is part of what makes therapy work for teens. Lauren will share clinical impressions, themes, and guidance during periodic parent check-ins, but not specific session content. The exceptions are situations involving immediate safety: if she's in danger to herself, in danger from someone else, or planning to harm someone else, we'll involve you. We'll talk about exactly how confidentiality works at intake so you understand what to expect.
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The honest answer is that adolescent development includes a wide range of normal that can feel alarming to parents. What's worth paying attention to: persistent withdrawal, changes in eating or sleeping, loss of interest in things she used to care about, expressions of hopelessness or self-loathing, signs of self-harm, or significant changes in friend groups or behavior. Even when what she's going through is within the normal range, having a therapist she can talk to is often valuable. We can help sort out what's developmental and what calls for more attention during the consultation.
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Yes, but with a real conversation rather than a directive. Phone use, social media patterns, and the impact on teen mental health are part of what therapy with teens addresses. We don't approach it as a moral problem to lecture about. We approach it as something she's navigating that's affecting her, and help her develop her own relationship to it. Lectures from adults rarely change teen phone use. Self-awareness, supported by a therapist she trusts, sometimes does.
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Yes. Lauren is a Black clinician who works with teen girls of all racial backgrounds, and a meaningful portion of her practice is Black girls and young women navigating racial identity, code-switching, predominantly white school environments, or family-of-origin dynamics specific to the Black experience. She doesn't require teens to translate that context before the work can start.
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Worth exploring why. Sometimes it's a fit issue with the previous therapist. Sometimes the previous therapist wasn't the right specialty for what she was carrying. Sometimes she wasn't ready, and is now. Sometimes the parent role around the previous therapy made it feel less hers. We can talk during the consultation about what didn't work before so we can tell you honestly whether we're likely to be different.
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For body image, identity, and the broader pressures teens face around appearance, yes. For active eating disorder behaviors that require specialized treatment (restriction, purging, binge eating), we typically refer to a clinician or program with specific eating disorder expertise. The consultation is where we sort out which category your daughter's situation falls into.
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It depends on what she's working on. Some teens come for a specific situation (a transition, a friend group rupture, a discrete event) and finish in a few months. Others benefit from longer-term work that supports them through multiple stages of adolescence. We don't predict timeline at the start. We check in regularly about how the work is going and what she still wants to do.
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That's not unusual at the start, and it's not a failure of the therapy. Some teens take weeks of showing up before they start opening up. Lauren's job isn't to extract information from a reluctant teen. It's to make the space safe enough that she eventually wants to share. If after a meaningful amount of time the work genuinely isn't progressing, we'll be honest with you about whether continuing makes sense.