PANDAS/PANS Therapy for Children, Teens, and Families
If your child, teen, or young adult has PANDAS/PANS, you're probably searching for answers—and wondering what comes next.
I provide specialized virtual therapy throughout New York State to help children, teens, adults, and parents navigate OCD, anxiety, emotional regulation, trauma, and the emotional impact of PANDAS/PANS as part of the recovery process.
PANDAS/PANS can turn your family's world upside down.
Watching your child suddenly seem like a different person can take an enormous emotional toll on your entire family.
You may feel overwhelmed, exhausted, heartbroken, or unsure how to respond to the OCD, anxiety, emotional outbursts, eating restrictions, school refusal, and other symptoms that can seem to appear overnight.
You don't have to navigate PANDAS/PANS alone.
As both a PANDAS/PANS parent and a therapist with more than 25 years of clinical experience, I understand how isolating and overwhelming this journey can feel.
I provide specialized virtual therapy throughout New York State for children, teens, young adults, and parents living with PANDAS/PANS.
When children, teens, and young adults are receiving appropriate medical treatment to address the underlying inflammation, therapy often becomes much more effective for treating:
OCD
Anxiety
Trauma
Emotional regulation
The lasting impact PANDAS/PANS can have on the entire family
Whether I'm working directly with your child, supporting you as a parent, or helping your family navigate recovery together, my goal is to help you feel more hopeful, more connected, and better equipped for the road ahead.
How I Support PANDAS/PANS Families:
Supporting a child with PANDAS/PANS often requires more than one approach. My work is tailored to your family's unique needs and may include education about PANDAS/PANS, parent coaching, nervous system regulation, emotional support, and evidence-based therapies that help you navigate the challenges of daily life with greater confidence.
As both a therapist and a PANDAS/PANS parent, I understand this journey from both a professional and personal perspective.
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PANDAS/PANS affects the entire family. Research shows that parents often experience significant stress while trying to support a child or teen with this illness. Depending on your family's needs, therapy may include work with parents, children, teens, or the family as a whole. Together we'll focus on practical tools, emotional support, and strategies that help your family navigate PANDAS/PANS with greater confidence and resilience.
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OCD is one of the most common and often misunderstood symptoms of PANDAS/PANS. Intrusive thoughts, compulsive behaviors, reassurance seeking, avoidance, and emotional distress can be frightening for both children and parents.
I help children, teens, and parents understand how OCD affects thoughts, feelings, and behaviors while providing practical strategies that reduce family stress and support recovery. As inflammation improves and symptoms become more manageable, therapy may also include evidence-based approaches such as Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) when appropriate.
Together, we'll determine the right timing and approach based on your child's symptoms, medical treatment, and your family's unique needs. -
I am trained in the specific parenting approaches that are effective for PDA by the PDA Society of UK and other resources. I help parents learn how to shift perceived demands on their child or teen, understand that PDA is a response to internal anxiety in their child or teen, and how to respond differently in order to navigate PDA effectively.
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Collaborative and Proactive Problem Solving is an evidence-based approach created by Dr. Ross Greene to navigate challenging behavior. Since many PANDAS/PANS families deal with push-back or anger as part of the illness, this approach helps families create realistic expectations, provide support for lagging skills, and problem-solve to create effective outcomes in a collaborative format.
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I use CBT to help children, teens, and parents better understand how anxiety, OCD, and PANDAS/PANS influence thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. Together we develop practical strategies that reduce distress and make daily life feel more manageable.
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SPACE is an evidence-based treatment for parents of children and teens with anxiety and OCD. It can be especially helpful for PANDAS/PANS families because the child or teen does not need to participate in therapy. Research has shown that meaningful change can occur by working with parents alone.
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I am trained in an approach called Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT). DBT skills can help PANDAS/PANS kids, teens and parents become more mindful of their thoughts and feelings, develop an ability to handle stressful situations more easily, learn ways to increase self-regulation and improve relationship and communication skills.
What is PANDAS/PANS?
PANDAS and PANS are neuroimmune conditions in which an infection or abnormal immune response can trigger sudden, dramatic changes in a child's thoughts, emotions, behavior, and nervous system functioning.
While PANDAS specifically follows streptococcal infections, PANS is a broader diagnosis that can have many different triggers.
Symptoms often appear suddenly and can affect nearly every aspect of a child's daily life. Many children experience severe OCD, anxiety, emotional dysregulation, and behavioral changes that leave families searching for answers.
Common Symptoms May Include:
Obsessive-Compulsive Symptoms (OCD): Intrusive thoughts, obsessions and compulsions often appear suddenly and can become severe enough to interfere with school, family life, and everyday activities.
Anxiety: Intense anxiety, panic, separation anxiety, or overwhelming fears may develop suddenly and seem completely out of character.
Emotional Dysregulation: Children may experience mood swings, emotional lability, irritability, emotional outbursts, or difficulty calming once upset.
Tic Disorders: Motor tics (involuntary muscle movements) and/or vocal tics (involuntary vocalizations) can appear suddenly and become prominent in PANS. These tics may be repetitive and difficult to control.
Behavioral Changes: Sudden and significant changes in behavior, including rage episodes, aggression, impulsivity, oppositional behavior, or severe irritability, can occur.
Cognitive Disturbances: Cognitive symptoms like problems with attention, concentration, memory, and executive functioning may arise suddenly. Children might struggle with tasks that were previously manageable.
Sleep Disturbances: Sleep disruptions, such as insomnia, night terrors, or restless sleep, can occur as part of PANDAS and PANS.
Sensory Sensitivities: Heightened sensitivities to sensory stimuli, like light, sound, touch, or taste, might emerge or worsen.
Physical Symptoms: Children with PANDAS and PANS may experience physical symptoms such as motor difficulties, weakness, headaches, joint pain, bladder issues and other unexplained physical discomfort.
Regression: In some cases, children may experience regression in skills they had previously mastered, such as toileting, handwriting, or language abilities. There can also be behavioral regression where they child may act much younger than they are.