Diane Ussery
Every day feels exactly the same, like you’re stuck on repeat and can’t break out of it. The anxiety hits hard and makes your whole-body freeze, and your mind starts spiraling before you can even stop it. You’re exhausted, but a small part of you still doesn’t want to give up. The sadness makes you wake up grumpy, snappy, and annoyed at everyone, even when you don’t mean to be.
Let us collaborate on viable solutions together through your cell phone or iPad.
You barely want to talk to anyone or leave your room because you feel lost and scared, and everything just feels too much.
First session
When you finally talk about what’s been weighing you down, things start to feel a little less scary. You learn how to slow your thoughts instead of getting pulled into every spiral, and you begin to understand what your anxiety is actually trying to tell you. You get better at naming your feelings instead of shutting down or snapping at people. And slowly, you realize you’re not stuck anymore; you’re actually moving forward.
Strengths
Therapy for your teen can help them calm their body, steady their thoughts, and manage big feelings. Together, we will help them notice what is working and build on it, so change feels possible instead of overwhelming. I use a variety of interventions where they feel understood, not judged — a place where they can be honest about what’s actually going on inside them. Your teen needs you to act — and I’m here to respond. Call or Email me today.
Ideal clients
The people I sit with rarely arrive in a crisis. More often, something has shifted. A life that once felt manageable now feels like more than one person can hold. You Barely Recognize the Kid Behind That Door. Your son used to leave his door open. Now it stays shut, and the boy on the other side of it feels like a stranger. He is 15. He wakes up already tired. His stomach hurts, his head aches, his heart races for reasons he can’t name, and when you ask what’s wrong he says “nothing” and looks away. He’s pulled back from his friends. He scrolls until two in the morning, then drags himself through the day. Under his breath, you catch it: "I hate my life." You lie awake at night with the only question that matters." Is he going to be okay?" Her mother and her grandmother died within two days of each other. Two goodbyes arrived so close together that the world stopped making sense. Some mornings, she can barely move. Other days, she feels nothing at all, until a song or a smell knocks the wind out of her without warning. People keep telling her it will get easier. What she needs is someone who won’t rush her, someone who understands that a loss this size doesn’t keep a schedule. You are the one everyone leans on, at home and at work. You're also the one who feels dismissed, unheard, and quietly worn down to almost nothing. Sleep won’t come. Mornings feel like a wall. You keep tending to everyone around you while your own reserves run low, like a watering can nearly empty, sent again and again to a garden that only asks for more. You're tired in a way that rest doesn’t touch. Lonely...
Treatment methods
Solution Focused Brief Treatment
You will finally put words to what’s been dragging you down, the whole thing starts to feel less frightening. From there, I teach real skills you can carry into the exact moments you need them. You will learn to name what you’re feeling instead of shutting down or snapping at the people you love. The emotions that once felt overwhelming become something you know how to navigate. Real change settles into life slowly, and it lasts. Reaching out is the first real step. Let’s talk it through!
Cognitive Behavioral (CBT)
Together, we’ll begin with what’s happening right now. And with what you most want to be different. I’ll help you catch the anxious thoughts as they start to spin. Then we’ll ask, gently, whether they’re telling you the truth. We’ll practice skills for steadying the big emotions before they take over. And I’ll teach you tools small enough to take into any ordinary moment. You’ll leave each session with something you can use that same night. Your well-being matters!
Dialectical Behavior (DBT)
The old feeling arrives before the words do. Somewhere in the middle your own needs slipped quietly out of view. Together, we’ll look at what’s happening beneath the surface, at the patterns that keep you stretched so thin. From there, we’ll trace the patterns underneath your stress, often back to the family and history that first shaped them. Therapy gives you a place where your needs matter and your story is heard without judgment. You deserve a place where you have to be the strong one.
Location
Virtual sessions
Identifies as
Top specialties
Other specialties
Serves
Licensed in
- CaliforniaLicense 107912