Built for teenagers. Scheduled around school.

Two reasons: one practical, one clinical. Practically: teenagers cannot maintain academic progress while missing school for treatment. The after-school schedule means they attend school in the morning and treatment in the afternoon. Clinically: for the large number of adolescents who struggle with school avoidance, pulling them out of school for treatment sends the wrong message. School attendance is not negotiable. The schedule is built to reflect that from the first day. For teenagers with active school refusal, maintaining the morning school expectation, even at reduced attendance, is itself part of the exposure plan.

Substantially involved. Family therapy is a standard component of the program, not an optional add-on. Research on adolescent anxiety and OCD consistently shows that family accommodation patterns (reassurance-giving, avoidance facilitation, ritual participation) maintain these conditions as powerfully as the teenager's own behavior. Parents are not the cause of anxiety or OCD, but they are often a significant part of the maintenance cycle, and addressing that cycle is essential to treatment. Family sessions teach parents how to respond to distress and avoidance behavior in ways that support recovery rather than unintentionally reinforcing it.

Most outpatient therapy for adolescent anxiety and OCD is not exposure-based. Therapists discuss feelings, build insight, and teach coping skills, but the core mechanism of change (systematic confrontation of feared stimuli with response prevention) is either absent or too infrequent to produce lasting change. One hour per week of exposure practice is rarely sufficient for moderate-to-severe presentations. IOP intensity (9–15 hours per week, with daily exposure practice) produces outcomes that weekly therapy cannot. If previous treatment also lacked explicit DBT skill-building before exposure, this program's pairing of the two is often the missing piece.

This is one of the most common things parents ask. First: willingness does not have to be complete for treatment to begin or to work. Many adolescents who are initially resistant engage meaningfully within the first week once they experience the program's structure and peer environment. Second: family therapy begins immediately and includes coaching on how to support attendance without engaging in coercive dynamics that escalate conflict. Third: for teenagers who are genuinely unable to attend in person due to school refusal or severe anxiety, we discuss a graduated engagement plan. Refusing treatment is itself an avoidance behavior, and we treat it as such.

We are in-network with most major commercial insurance plans and accept Medicaid in Ohio and Indiana. Our intake team verifies benefits before the first appointment. Adolescent IOP coverage varies by plan, and we will give you a clear picture of expected out-of-pocket costs before any commitment is made.

Every afternoon you'll start with 30 minutes of something that isn't sitting and talking. Depending on the day it might be art, movement, or a guided practice. After that, a skills session, either CBT on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, or DBT on Tuesday and Thursday, and then a group where you practice facing something that makes you anxious. You'll end each session with a 15-minute check-in where everyone briefly says what they noticed and what they're taking away. Individual therapy happens once a week one-on-one. It's structured, but not rigid. You won't be asked to share things before you're ready.

Not in detail. The group format means you're working alongside other teenagers going through similar things, but you're not required to share the specifics of what you're anxious about or what your OCD targets are. Exposure practice is designed so each person works on their own hierarchy, so you'll know what you're doing, and so will the therapist, but you don't have to broadcast it to the group. Over time, most people find that knowing others are dealing with similar things makes the work feel less isolating.

The exposure work will make you uncomfortable, and that's the point. When you practice facing something that scares you and your anxiety eventually comes down, your brain learns that it can tolerate the fear. That's the mechanism of change. It doesn't feel good in the moment. But the research is very clear: avoidance keeps anxiety going and exposure reduces it. The skills you'll learn in the DBT sessions are there specifically to help you get through the hard moments without needing to escape. We don't ask you to face things before you have tools for it.

Tell your therapist. That's exactly what individual therapy is for, and it's the first thing they'll address with you, before anything else. This program has worked with a lot of teenagers who are dealing with those thoughts, and the Dialectical Behavior Therapy skills you'll learn here are specifically designed to help with the moments when emotion feels overwhelming. You won't be turned away for struggling. You'll be met where you are.

We are in-network with most major commercial insurance plans and accept Medicaid in Ohio and Indiana. Our intake team verifies benefits before the first appointment. Adolescent IOP coverage varies by plan, and we will give you a clear picture of expected out-of-pocket costs before any commitment is made.