You feel unsure where to turn as your child or teen struggles with big emotions and maybe even getting physical with you, their sibling(s), or peers. You wonder how to support your child to feel more safe in their body and mind so they can thrive. You want to strengthen the bond that has suffered alongside the mental health struggles both of you have been facing.

Trying to support your child or teen’s mental health while pouring from an empty cup isn’t working. “We all need therapy,” you think to yourself, “but is that a thing?”

Yes, it is.

I’m Corrine Mertz and I became a Child and Family Therapist after working as a residential counselor in a group home for teens here in Vermont. I was deeply inspired by the sense of belonging and the relationships built upon empathy and honesty with teens and their families. Ever since, I’ve been supporting children, teens, families, and adults as individuals and as family-units to heal from trauma, build stronger bonds, find calm in the storm, and live with a greater sense of meaning and purpose.

I particularly enjoy working with children, youth, and families that are marginalized here in Vermont. As a Queer parent, I have both lived experience and clinical expertise supporting LGBTQ2+ youth and families to navigate the complexities of coming out, gender exploration, bullying, parent-child conflict, anxiety, depression, and trauma. During my 15 years as a psychotherapist, I have gained competency and practiced cultural humility as a White-bodied therapist serving BIPOC and immigrant communities.

In our work together, you can expect to cultivate trust and learn how to hold complex and contradictory emotions while feeling into the possibility of greater calm, confidence, and meaning in your life. With kids and adults alike, I utilize somatic (body-based methods) to help the body process emotion and trauma to unlock negative self-talk and find compassion for yourself.

As a child and teen therapist, I support children starting in preschool through to young adulthood to find their voice, process trauma through art, psychodrama, body or eye movements, and talk — offering an outlet for past harms to be released in a safe environment. From there, we open-up space to build emotional intelligence, a sense of body awareness and autonomy, self-confidence, more resiliency, and coping mechanisms when challenging emotions arise.

When working with families, I support you (whether your family structure is single-parent, co-parenting, poly, or two-parent household) to cultivate honesty and vulnerability and build healthy intimacy with one another. As a Certified Brainspotting Therapist, I bring in this evidence-based practice to help the brain process and release trauma, to support building trust with your own body and mind that can then build, over time, in your relationships.

To explore a more embodied, compassionate, and connected way forward, call 802-222-0436 or fill out the contact form.