Children often experience big emotions such as anger, sadness, and grief but they haven’t yet developed the cognitive ability to understand or express exactly what they are feeling. This often leads to disruptions in the home, school or even daycare. Play therapy is a proven therapeutic modality that assists children with many issues they are faced with today.

This is where a trained play therapist comes in! We enter your child’s world from his perspective and allow him to guide the play. We begin to identify and understand what your child is experiencing and aid you and your child with tools through this tricky time. With a trained play therapist, play therapy can be an effective treatment to help the child grow, thrive and heal. At Andover Family Counseling, our Registered Play Therapist can walk you through every step of your play therapy journey.

Our therapist, Lindsay, knows how difficult it can be to live with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.  This is why Lindsay has made it a priority to seek evidenced based training programs for her education in this disorder.  Lindsay has completed the IOCDF’s Behavioral Therapy Training Institute as well as completed consultation with the Director of Child OCD, Anxiety and Tic Disorders Program at UCLA’s Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior. 

Linday has been trained in both pediatric and adult OCD.  When you work with her, you will receive a personalized and manageable treatment plan utilizing both Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Exposure Response and Prevention-the gold standard for treating OCD. 

To learn more about OCD, visit the IOCDF website or reach out to Lindsay. 

Andover Family Counseling is well known for our work with families. We work with families that have children from early childhood through to the teenage years and beyond. Families are complicated. They are ever-changing, evolving and tensions naturally rise. Oftentimes, family therapy seems like the last resort. But once you reach out to our family therapists, you’ll understand why it is a step in the right direction.

At Andover Family Counseling, our therapists work with families to identify goals personal to each specific family. Some of these goals can be addressing parenting, sibling conflict, separation/divorce, transitions, or grief/loss to name a few. It is tough being a parent, we know that! We understand that! We want you to know you are not alone.

Life can be a struggle at times. If you find yourself having trouble controlling worries, feeling down, or just having a difficult time adjusting to a change in your life, it may be time to seek help in the form of therapy. At Andover Family Counseling, we offer a supportive place for you to just grab a cup of coffee and relax during your therapy session. We will work together toward a brighter future.

Our trained therapists will work alongside you to develop a customized approach to overcome challenges you are facing. Tools that are provided in therapy are practical and can be taken and implemented into your everyday life. Many people seek individual therapy, including successful professionals, people who are struggling in their professional life but happy in their personal, or someone who is wanting to address trauma from the past. We are here to help.

If sexual issues are preventing true closeness between you and your partner, you may want to consider sex therapy. Or you want a sex-positive therapist who will support your lifestyle, we are here for you. We are kink, poly, BDSM+ informed and affirming. We welcome clients regardless of their sexual preferences, practices, or identities.  

Specific objectives may include:

• Learning to eliminate and relax distractions
• Focusing on the physical relationship between a couple
• Learning to communicate what you’d like in a positive way
• Learning nonsexual touching techniques
• Increasing or enhancing sexual stimulation
• Minimizing pain during intercourse
• Overcoming performance issues
• Intimacy after sexual assault or abuse
• Overcoming mismatched sexual desires with your partner
• Overcoming stigma & shame about sex & masturbation 

If you’d like to explore sex therapy, we want you to know that you aren’t alone in having sexual questions or just wanting a sex-positive therapist. Please contact us today for a free consultation to see if we are a good match.  Ragan Snyder-Smith, LSCSW, RPT-S is your go-to therapist for this specialty! 

Embracing and celebrating geekiness, cosplay, comics, memes, anime and pop culture is a passion at AFC. You deserve a therapist who gets your unique quirks & fandoms. While we don’t get every single pop culture reference, we will honor and celebrate this part of who you are. No shaming, judging, or talking you out of your passions or hobbies. We understand what it’s like to be part of a nerdy subculture. We have specialized training and experience in helping geeks and gamers heal from trauma, abuse or deal with anxiety & depression.  Ragan Snyder-Smith will be your go-to therapist for this specialty!

“We’re capable of the most incredible change. We can evolve while still staying true to who we are. We can honor who we’ve been and choose who we want to be next. Now’s your chance.” -Dr. Who