Therapy for Children, Teens, & Families
Helping children and parents grow together.
Leslie Ho, Ph.D.
My Approach
Whether it is finding support for your child who is experiencing anxiety about academic pressures, helping your child manage big emotions, or trying to enhance your parenting practices to meet your child’s neurodiverse needs, accessing mental health support for your family can be a vulnerable experience. That is why my approach to therapy emphasizes evidence-based treatment while staying rooted in a perspective that is empathetic, strengths-based, and culturally responsive. I view therapy as a collaborative process of building trust and partnership with families as we tailor treatment to meet your family’s unique needs, while also incorporating your family and cultural values and building upon natural strengths and resiliencies. Using trauma-informed therapy approaches, I aim to make therapy a space of safety, stability, and empowerment for both parents and children.
I specialize in cognitive and behaviorally based therapies that help children and their parents better understand the hows and whys of their emotions, behaviors, and thinking patterns and practice effective ways of coping with life challenges. Based on individual needs, I may also incorporate mindfulness techniques and social-emotional learning in my therapeutic work. I work individually with children and adolescents for concerns relating to anxiety, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) or trauma exposure, and grief. I also provide support to parents for managing children’s emotional and behavioral needs while addressing the impact of intergenerational trauma and/or acculturation stress on parenting practices.
My goal is to help families build mental and emotional resilience by strengthening parent-child relationships, increasing emotional and behavioral self-regulation, and enhancing problem solving and communication skills. I hope to foster harmonious family relationships and support your child in developing social-emotional skills and adaptive coping strategies to not just overcome life challenges, but also thrive and meet their own goals for the future.
Qualifications & Training
Education
Doctor of Clinical Psychology (Ph.D.) - The Pennsylvania State University (APA-Accredited)
Master of Science in Clinical Psychology (M.S.) - The Pennsylvania State University
Bachelor of Arts in Psychology, Minor in Asian American Diaspora Studies (B.A.) - The University of California, Berkeley
Clinical Training
Postdoctoral Fellowship: Clinical-Child Psychology Fellowship at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles - Project HEAL, Trauma Psychology specialty (APA-accredited)
U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration’s (HRSA) Graduate Psychology Education (GPE) Program: National Center for School Crisis and Bereavement (NCSCB) Fellow
U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration’s (HRSA) Graduate Psychology Education (GPE) Program: Children’s Hospital Los Angeles Division of Rheumatology Psychology Fellow
Predoctoral Internship: Clinical-Child Psychology Internship at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles - Project HEAL, Trauma Psychology specialty (APA-accredited)
Dr. Ho is currently supervised by Genevieve Skale, Psy.D.
Evidence-Based Practices
Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT)
Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT)
Parent Management Training (PMT)
Incredible Years (IY)
Coping Cat & CAT Project
Unified Protocol for Transdiagnostic Treatment of Emotional Disorders in Children and Adolescents (UP-C, UP-A)
Specialty Areas of Practice
Parent Coaching
Many parents find themselves wanting additional support to address their children’s emotional and behavioral needs. For emotional and behavioral concerns such as tantrumming, not listening, talking back, hitting, or having trouble calming down strong emotions, parent coaching can help you use effective behavioral management strategies while also promoting stronger parent-child bonds.
Approaches such as Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT), Incredible Years (IY), and Parent Management Training (PMT) are all examples of evidence-based parent coaching therapies that I can tailor to your specific parenting values, cultural values, and treatment goals. Each of these approaches has been shown to be effective in a variety of cultural contexts (Huang et al., 2003; Kong & Au, 2018; Leung et al. 2009). I believe in a collaborative and strengths-based approach that enhances your confidence and knowledge in responding to a variety of behavioral needs. Using a strong parent-child relationship as the foundation, we can work together to help your child develop better self-regulation, emotion knowledge, decision-making, and communication skills.
Childhood & Adolescent Trauma
Childhood trauma and other significant life stressors can have a powerful impact on children’s brain development, with downstream effects on their emotional and behavioral self-control, social skills, and attention. Children who have experienced chronic stress, trauma, or grief may have strong fear-related reactions, behavioral outbursts, trouble listening to adults, or difficulty paying attention and learning in class.
Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT) is an evidence-based therapy for trauma-exposed children and adolescents that aims to help them understand their experiences and reactions, develop adaptive coping strategies, and change unhelpful thought patterns and behavioral responses that develop after exposure to trauma. TF-CBT also includes parents by helping them better understand their child’s experiences and support their child’s healing journey, with the overall goal of promoting safety, agency, and adaptive coping responses for the whole family.
Childhood & Adolescent Anxiety
Is your child distracted by worry throughout the day? Does your child feel sick with worry about doing well in school, making friends, or not getting in trouble? Some children may find that their worries are difficult to control or even cause them significant emotional pain or bodily discomfort such as headaches, stomachaches, chest tightness, and nausea. Excessive worry can get in the way of being able to concentrate in school and sleep well at night, or prevent your child from separating from you, feeling comfortable leaving home, forming social relationships, or participating in extracurricular activities or new experiences.
In these situations, evidence-based approaches such as Coping Cat or Unified Protocol can support children in understanding their anxiety cues, practicing ways to calm down excessively strong worried feelings, and changing unhelpful anxiety-related thoughts. Based on individual needs, I will also work with children and their families to complete exposure therapy to help them develop self-confidence and courage in facing commonly feared situations. These treatment approaches focus on destigmatizing anxiety, understanding why and how anxiety happens, addressing ways that children’s environment may maintain their anxiety response, and fostering more adaptive responses to life’s challenges.