Adolescent and Family Services

One option would be for your child to see a counselor for individual therapy sessions. Depending on the age and development of your child, the therapist can work usefully with the young person and provide them with skills for support. However, parents would still be asked to be involved in the process. This would entail occasional but regular meetings between the parent(s) and the therapist.

For younger children (3-12 yrs), we would most likely recommend a combination of play therapy with the child, or behavioural approaches working mostly with parents. Both the child and parent(s) involvement would be important and your therapist can give you more details on how they work and what that could look like for your family. 

** NOTE: We are currently not accepting children whoa re 12 years old or younger. We apologize for the inconvenience. 

For adolescents (13-18 yrs), traditional talk therapy could be more appropriate, though we would still recommend parental involvement and a systems-focused approach until late teens. Please note that these age ranges are tentative as there can be differences in development versus biological age. Depending on your family’s needs, we can assist you in deciding what approach may be suitable.

Another option would be for the parent(s) to attend therapy. The therapist can work with the parent(s) on how to address behaviours and can support the parent(s) with their own concerns. This process would most likely involve developing new strategies, training and behavioural interventions. Depending on the age of the child, it is often more appropriate to work with the parent(s) than to work with the child directly. If you are unsure if this is the best option for you, feel free to consult with us based on your child’s needs.

Both the child and the parent(s) have separate therapy sessions to address concerns. In some cases, the therapist for the child and the therapist for the parent(s) would be different but would work as a team to best support your family. Alternatively, in some situations the same therapist might work with both the child and the parent(s) and the sessions would be arranged by your therapist in an appropriate ratio depending on your needs.

Family therapy sessions are another option that we offer at TMH. The therapist would work with the parent(s) and child together in longer, typically 80 minute sessions. If it is appropriate for your family, the therapist may suggest having additional individual sessions with you or your child from time to time. Family sessions can help facilitate communication in the moment and support families to have conversations that feel difficult to address without help.

Psychological Assessments are best suited for families who are concerned about their child’s behaviour and development. Specifically, we are able to do assessments for ADHD and autism spectrum disorders (ASDs). We can assess children above 5 years of age for autism spectrum disorders and 7 years of age for ADHD at Tokyo Mental Health. If your child is below 5 or 7 years respectively, we would recommend starting with therapeutic work with either the child and parents together, or just the parents with the focus on support around your child’s behaviour and development, which would involve psychoeducation and support around your child’s behavioural and developmental concerns.

If your child has already been evaluated by a psychologist before, and you would like to start therapy, please share the report with us. We would be happy to continue and develop the treatment plan working with both you and your family.

In some cases it might be necessary for your child to receive psychiatric assessment and care. This would usually be in order to consider pharmacotherapy of some type. Guidance for psychiatrists recommends trying counseling and psychological treatment for most mental health issues in childhood initially, often for several months, only proceeding to psychotropic medication in cases where problems fail to respond to non-pharmacological interventions sufficiently. Additionally, the younger the child, the more important it would be for the child to have a full psychology evaluation before moving onto psychopharmacological treatments to make sure no important aspects of the case, particularly neurodevelopmental aspects, have been overlooked. 

If you think your child might need psychiatric care, please ask your counselor or psychologist and they can refer you  where necessary to our director, Dr Andrew Kissane, who holds a psychiatry clinic at American Clinic Tokyo.

Is your child in Japan, maybe in education here, but as parents you are in your home country? We can offer psychological support and counseling, face to face or via telehealth, for adolescents who are struggling with their mental health while away from home, family and friends.

If your child approaches us directly, depending on their age and Japanese law, we may need to contact you for your consent for treatment as the parent. 

If your family is here with the US military and you have TRICARE, we are happy to help. Please see our TRICARE page.