For Children
As parents, you want to do everything possible to help your child.
When you see that your child keeps struggling, has worries and is fearful, or you hear from the school that there are difficulties, you want to find effective help for your child. Dr. Ryger has over 20 years of experience working with children starting from early pre-school age through early adulthood and beyond. We create a plan and take the steps together to help your child thrive.
Treatment for children always involves the parent or caregiver. We work as a collaborative team with a supportive, positive approach. Parents and/or caregivers learn specific strategies and tools, guided by the latest neuroscience research, to use at home. Children can work intently during their own visits in a therapeutic environment where they feel understood and connected.
Dr. Ryger can help children with:
Life Stressors • Anxiety including Social Anxiety & Separation Anxiety • Phobias • Academic Pressures • Adjusting to Divorce • Selective Mutism •Moving • Emotional Regulation • Potty Training Difficulties • Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) • Shyness • Depression • Coping with Illness • Elimination Disorders
DYNAMIC INTEGRATIVE PSYCHOTHERAPY (DIP)TM
After extensive training in Psychodynamic Psychotherapy, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Interpersonal Neurobiology, Mindfulness Practices, Attachment Theory, the cutting edge of neuroscience, and decades of clinical experience, Dr. Ryger created a comprehensive treatment formulation to address to challenges of life today - Dynamic Integrative PsychotherapyTM, an integrative approach can help you better understand your self and help to change your behavior.
Because of your brain's neuroplasticity, you can create new neuronal pathways to rewire the brain and develop new, more effective coping mechanisms. There are techniques, practices and behaviors that, when learned and practiced, can help you feel and respond differently. Even children as young as four can make sense of the "tummy aches" that may be related to their worries or fears, and can understand and connect with DIPTM-Modified For Children. Utilizing the modified DIPTM framework, children can develop personal insight that creates and strenghtens meaningful change, coping skills, strategies, and resilience.
additional treatment modalities
Play Therapy
Play is the language of childhood. Play therapy was developed to help children address and cope with difficult behavior and feelings. Through play, children are able to express what they may not be able to communicate through direct question and answer. It isn't necessarily that a child is holding back or they just don't want to answer, they just may not be able to put their feelings into words. Play can help children find their voice and provide a developmentally appropriate conduit of communication.
Behavioral Management Intervention
Behavioral Management Intervention provides an ancillary method to help change behavior in a meaningful way. Both child and parent/caregiver enter into a partnership with Dr. Ryger to learn, practice, and implement a new way of responding to external circumstances.
Mindfulness Practices —Modified for Children
Introducing Mindfulness Practices in a developmentally consistent fashion, can help a child develop greater self-regulation, attention, and compassion towards themselves and others. Research has shown that children can become more self-aware and better integrate mind and body experience. One helps to inform the other. Mindfulness can be a useful tool and practice for the support of executive functioning.