TL;DR: Finding the right therapist for your teen takes a different approach than finding one for yourself. The fit between a teen and their therapist matters more than almost any other factor, which means you need a therapist with genuine experience working with adolescents, not just one who accepts teens on their caseload. Erica Spartos, LMFT #81057, has worked with adolescents across nine San Francisco public schools and in private practice for over 20 years. Searching for

Talk therapy and EMDR work on different things. Talk therapy helps you understand and manage your experience. EMDR works on how the memory of that experience is stored in your nervous system. For clients processing trauma, EMDR often reaches something that years of talk therapy have not. Erica Spartos, LMFT #81057, has used both approaches with clients in San Francisco for over 20 years. Most people who consider EMDR have already been in therapy. That shapes the question they

What to Expect in Your First EMDR Session An EMDR session is more structured than traditional talk therapy and works differently than most people expect. You stay in control throughout. You do not need to describe what happened in detail. A standard EMDR session runs 60 to 90 minutes and follows one of eight defined phases depending on where you are in treatment. Erica Spartos, LMFT #81057, has been EMDR-trained and practicing in San Francisco for over 20 years. If you are co

According to Erica Spartos, LMFT (CA #81057), finding a therapist in San Francisco is harder than it should be, not because good therapists don't exist, but because the process of choosing one is overwhelming and rarely explained well. The single strongest predictor of whether therapy works is not the therapist's credentials or modality. It is the quality of the relationship between you and your therapist. This post walks through exactly what to look for, what to ask in a con

According to Erica Spartos, LMFT (CA #81057), feeling lost, stuck, or behind in your 20s is one of the most common experiences of early adulthood and not a sign that something is wrong with you. The developmental task of your 20s is identity formation, and that process is genuinely hard. This post explains why your 20s are psychologically demanding, what is actually happening beneath the surface, and what helps when the feeling will not lift on its own. Why do so many people

According to Erica Spartos, LMFT (CA #81057), EMDR - Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing - is an evidence-based therapy that helps people heal from trauma and distressing experiences without requiring them to retell everything that happened. Recognized by the American Psychological Association and the World Health Organization as an effective treatment for PTSD, it works by using bilateral stimulation to help the brain reprocess memories that are stored in a fragmen