Creative Healing

Learn how to understand what’s really driving your teen’s self-harm, suicidal thoughts, and high-risk behaviors so you can stop treating the symptom and start creating lasting change.\

You’ve Tried to Help. You’ve Tried Therapy. You’ve Tried Everything.

Maybe you’ve seen six other therapists. Or seven. Or ten. And you're exhausted.

Because every therapist seems to focus on the same thing:

• How do we get the self-harm to stop?

• How do we get them to use their coping skills?

• How do we keep them safe?

• How do we get them back to school?

• How do we get them to stop making impulsive decisions?

And yet somehow, you're still here.

Your teen is still struggling. The behavior keeps coming back. And you're left wondering why. Because you know there has to be something underneath all of this.

And you're right.

You Don't Need Another Therapist Who Only Sees the Behavior.

This is the work I have spent my career doing.

I specialize in working with high-risk teens who are self-harming, experiencing suicidal thoughts, acting impulsively, shutting down, avoiding school, or using destructive behaviors to survive emotions that feel impossible to manage.

And often, I'm the therapist families find after they've already tried everything else.

One of my greatest clinical strengths is my ability to assess what is actually happening underneath the behavior and identify the true treatment target.

Because self-harm is a behavior. It is not the whole story.

And if we only focus on stopping the behavior without understanding what function it serves, we may be taking away the one thing your teen has figured out how to use to survive.

We have to understand the behavior before we can help your teen replace it.

This Isn't Just What I Do. It's What I've Built My Life Around.

I'm Katie K. May, LPC, DBT-LBC, founder and Executive Director of Creative Healing Teen Support Centers.

I am a Linehan Board Certified DBT Clinician, one of a small number of clinicians in Pennsylvania to hold this certification, and I have dedicated my career to working with high-risk teens and the families who love them.

I've written two books about this work, with a third currently in progress.

My first book, You're On Fire, It's Fine, was written specifically for parents of teens with self-destructive behaviors and became a #1 Amazon bestseller.

I speak and train nationally and internationally on teen mental health, self-harm, high-risk behavior, and DBT.

I've also been invited to share my expertise with parents through media and podcasts, including appearances as a teen and parent mental health expert on Good Day Philadelphia.

But my expertise doesn't come only from books, certifications, or years in the therapy room. I understand this work personally. I lived it as a teen. I know what it feels like to feel different. To feel like you don't belong. To feel like you're too much and not enough at the exact same time. To experience the world around you as though nobody really understands what is happening inside of you.

And I've spent my life's work learning how to help teens who feel the same way.

I Work With the Teens Who Have Spent Their Lives Feeling Like They Are Last On Everyone’s List

The teen who doesn't fit neatly into the box. The teen who feels everything deeply. The teen who has been told they're dramatic, difficult, manipulative, too sensitive, or too much. The teen who has learned to turn their pain against themselves because they don't know what else to do with it. The teen who desperately wants to belong but doesn't feel understood anywhere.

Those are my clients. And those are the teens I love working with.

My goal isn't to make your teen less sensitive. It isn't to make them easier to parent. And it isn't simply to make the behavior disappear. It's to help them understand themselves. To understand why they feel the way they feel. Why their brain responds the way it does. Why certain situations become unbearable. What their behaviors are trying to accomplish. And what they can do instead.

Learn How to Help Your Teen Build a Life They Don't Need to Escape From

Through specialized DBT and trauma-informed treatment, we'll work on the skills your teen needs to:

• Survive overwhelming emotions without hurting themselves

• Understand the function behind self-harm and other high-risk behaviors by identifying their actual treatment targets

• Build emotional regulation skills that work in real life

• Process traumatic experiences and invalidation

• Develop a stronger sense of identity and self-worth

• Communicate what they need without everything becoming a crisis

• Advocate for themselves in relationships, school, and treatment

• Build meaningful connection and belonging

• Create a Life Worth Living

And I’ll support you too

Because I know that when your teen has attempted suicide or repeatedly harmed themselves, you can develop your own trauma around keeping them safe. You may be afraid of every closed door. Every quiet moment. Every subtle shift in their mood. Every time they say they're tired.

You shouldn't have to carry that fear alone and you don’t have to when you have the right support.

Move beyond crisis management and help your teen build the skills, self-understanding, confidence, and sense of belonging they need to create a life worth living.

As the founder of Creative Healing who travels to train across the globe on teen mental health and high-risk behavior, I can only work with a very limited number of families through Therapy Intensives.

These experiences are designed for teens and families who need focused, specialized support and are ready to move beyond simply managing the next crisis.

If you've already tried therapy and you're looking for someone who specializes in the kind of teen most therapists aren't equipped to treat, this is the work I was built to do.

Click the button below to start the application process.