COLLEEN HAMILTON, PSY.D.

Dr. Colleen Hamilton is a clinical and child psychologist, with her training focused on work with children, adolescents, and families. She specializes in children, and has a wide variety of experience working with children and their families. Dr. Hamilton’s fun and creative spirit as a child therapist makes her uniquely skilled at engaging children in the process! She is well versed in a variety of approaches that engage children to include play therapy, sand tray therapy, art therapy, music therapy, and body movement therapy. Depending on the presenting problem, her direct work with the child may focus on lessening sadness or anxiety, developing coping skills or problem solving skills, social skill improvement, self-esteem raising, anger management / emotion regulation, or behavior modification. Concurrently she includes parent training and coaching. One area of common concern often presented is noncompliance at home or at school. Dr. Hamilton works with the family and school to develop a behavior modification plan to improve behavior. She stresses full participation from all those involved, including the child, to achieve optimal success. Dr. Hamilton also has a special interest in and extensive experience in working with traumatized children, and she worked as both a Therapist and Research Coordinator for a Child & Adolescent Traumatic Stress Program. Her trauma work with children is often done with a combination of individual therapy, family therapy, and parent sessions. Dr. Hamilton focuses on teaching the parent to support the child through their recovery while strengthening the parent-child relationship. When dealing with all childhood issues, Dr. Hamilton recognizes the importance of the family and works extensively with parents to understand how their child’s development and external stressors impact their child’s functioning. She has also conducted sibling groups to improve sibling interactions and develop conflict resolution skills. In addition to therapy, Dr. Hamilton provides educational and psychological testing for children, for AD/HD, learning disorders, and to discern the impact psychological issues such as depression or anxiety may be having on the teen’s school performance or behavior in general.