Instilling each adolescent with the competence & confidence to advance their own well-being while managing symptoms

Group Therapy for Adolescents struggling with
School Avoidance * Suicidal Ideation * Panic Disorder * Social Anxiety * General Anxiety * Depression * Self-harm * Phobias
Difficulties in regulating painful emotions are central to the behavioral difficulties of many adolescents. From these individuals’ perspective, painful feelings are most often the “problems to be solved.” These behavioral difficulties might be considered ADHD, anxiety or depression as many of the symptoms and behaviors overlap and interact. For example, studies have found that having an anxiety disorder in early or middle childhood can increase your child’s risk of developing a depressive disorder in later adolescence. Both anxiety and depression can lead to dysfunctional behaviors, including suicidal behaviors, substance use, overeating, emotion suppression, overcontrol, and interpersonal mayhem, which are often behavioral solutions to intolerably painful emotions.
The Two Tents Intensive Outpatient Program (IOP) utilizes Dialect Behavioral Therapy - Skills (DBT-S), ACT (Acceptance Commitment Therapy) for Adolescents in the form of DNA-V and exposure therapy. Our unique blending has become the BOLD Living Skills taught to help your young person and your family find more effective ways to regulate their emotions and thereby, their behaviors. All three clinical models have decades of evidence in effectively treating anxiety, depression and the complication of ADHD, shame and guilt. This is done in an intensive group setting 3 hours a day, 4 days per week (Monday-Thursday) usually over 5-6 weeks.
Adolescent IOP
- For adolescents ages 13-18 (if still in high school)
- Group sessions Monday through Thursday from 2:00-5:00 pm (4x per week)
- 18-24 group sessions (usually over 5-6 weeks)
- Open group. New starts on Mondays (based on openings)
- Required Parent Involvement
- One time orientation the day young person starts. Same time as group: 2-5 pm. First half is Youth and parent(s) together. Youth then join group & parents continue with Jason.
- Family Skills Group: Weekly Parent involvement Thursdays from 3:30-5 pm
- Utilizes Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) skills training with DNA-V filter development (based on ACT) and Exposure Therapy (ERP)
Designed to Enhance & Partner (not compete) with:
- Individual and/or family therapy
- Medical interventions (psychopharmacology)
- Education (school counselors / teachers / nurses)
- Weekly communication with schools / therapists
- Weekly AfterCare offered
- Parent Support Group on 1st & 3rd Wednesdays 6-7:20 pm
Learn More!
Get Started!
- Intake Process:
- complete eligibility form (takes ~25 minutes)
- free assessment
- $200 deposit holds next available slot
- Once the Eligibility Form (see button below) has been submitted our Clinical Intake Specialist, Katie Frits, will be in contact within one business day to schedule an in-person assessment. If you have any trouble with this form call Renew at 913.768.6606 and press 0.
- At the assessment we will provide you a written review of your insurance benefits and out-of-pocket costs.
Sign up for BOLD Living Newsletter!
Weekly newsletter (Saturdays) with videos, ways to think about and skills to support adolescents struggling with anxiety / depression.
Jason Bohn, LPC - Helping Adolescents with Anxiety
Topics: Be on the Journey Together I They Can't do this on their Own I Educate Yourself First I Using Mindful Action I Recognizing Anxiety I Anxiety is Bigger than "Mean" Thoughts I Creating a Thrive Filter for your Young Person I You're going to have to Parent Differently
Anxiety disorders affect 30% of US adolescents. The Anxiety Center at Renew opened the TWO TENTS IOP for those 13-18 needing more than weekly therapy. This short-term, intensive program provides practical, tactical and experiential training utilizing the DNA-V model of ACT and Dialectical Behavior Therapy-Skills (DBT-S).
Youth Created
Characteristics of Dysregulation Domains
- Self-dysregulation: Lacking awareness of emotions, thoughts, action urges; poor attentional control; unable to reduce one’s suffering while also having difficulty accessing pleasure; identity confusion, sense of emptiness, and dissociation.
- Behavioral dysregulation: Impulsive behaviors such as cutting classes, blurting out in class, spending money, risky sexual behavior, risky online behavior, bingeing and/or purging, drug and alcohol abuse, aggressive behaviors, suicidal and nonsuicidal self-injurious behaviors.
- Emotion dysregulation: Emotional vulnerability; emotional reactivity; emotional lability; angry outburst; steady negative emotional states such as depression, anger, shame, anxiety, and guilt; deficits in positive emotions and difficulty in modulating emotions.
- Interpersonal dysregulation: Unstable relationships, interpersonal conflicts, chronic family disturbance, social isolation, efforts to avoid abandonment, and difficulties getting wants and needs met in relationships and maintaining one’s self-respect in relationships.
- Cognitive dysregulation and family conflict: Nondialectical thinking and acting (ie., extreme, polarized, or black-or-white), poor perspective taking and conflict resolution, invalidation of self and other, difficulty effectively influencing own and others’ behaviors (i.e., obtaining desired changes).
The TWO TENTS IOP utilizes both DBT-S and components of ACT that have been shown to
- Decrease Suicidal Behaviors
- Decrease behaviors that interfere with therapy and life by
- Increasing Find Acceptance Skills
- Mindful Action: are used to decrease identity confusion, feelings of emptiness, and emotion dysregulation
- Distress Tolerance / Crisis Survival: are used to decrease impulsive behavior, suicide threats, and self-injury behaviors
- Increasing Understand Change Skills
- Emotion Regulation: are used to effectively cope with anger, fear, shame and sadness
- Interpersonal Effectiveness: are used to decrease interpersonal chaos and feeling of abandonment. they are skills that are used to ask for effectively, to set boundaries, and to say "no" effectively
- Supporting Take Initiative Skills
- Flexible Thinking: are used to develop a Growth Mindset vs. a Fixed Mindset
- Value Clarification: are used to guide action around connecting, giving, being active, challenging oneself
Treatment Team
Jason Bohn, LPC
Clinical Director, Adolescent Services
Jason is 1-part clinician, 1-part youth minister, 1-part community catalyst; completely child-like and filled with wonder about to make the world a better place 1 teen at a time.
jason@anxietycenterkc.com
913-768-6606 ext 330
Katie Frits, MS, LPC, NCC
Clinician
Katelyn is passionate about helping children and families reconnect with one another by providing an engaging therapeutic setting.
kfrits.renew@gmail.com
913-768-6606 ext. 338

Kelsi Grove, MA, LPC
Clinician
Kelsi has a Master of Arts degree in Counseling with an emphasis on couples and families. She is also pursuing credentialing in animal-assisted therapy.
913-768-6606 ext. 332
Get Started!
- Intake Process:
- complete eligibility form (takes ~25 minutes)
- free assessment
- $200 deposit holds next available slot
- Once the Eligibility Form (see button below) has been submitted our Clinical Intake Specialist, Katie Frits, will be in contact within one business day to schedule an in-person assessment. If you have any trouble with this form call Renew at 913.768.6606 and press 0.
- At the assessment we will provide you a written review of your insurance benefits and out-of-pocket costs.
Insurance?
The Adolescent Intensive Outpatient Program (group therapy) is either in-network or we can usually get authorization (coverage) from these companies. We are not a covered service and cannot get coverage from KanCare (including Aetna KanCare), Medicaid or Medicare. For those families, we do offer a self-pay rate, scholarships and payment plan options. At the assessment we will provide you a written review of your insurance benefits and out-of-pocket costs, if possible.
- Aetna
- BSBC / New Directions
- Cigna
- Humana
- United Health Care/Optum (commercial, not Medicaid)
Thoughts from "Why Do they Act that Way?" By David Walsh, Ph.d
Because the mental health system is so frustrating to navigate, it takes some active efforts to get good care and how to avoid some of its various pitfalls. Here’s how.
- Read your insurance policy carefully to find out exactly what your mental health and chemical dependency benefits are. They may be described in a separate section of your policy.
- Read your insurance policy or member handbook to determine the procedures for accessing care. The procedures may be different from the benefits. Fox example, your policy may state that you are entitled to thirty outpatient visits per year. The procedures, however, may state that all visits much be authorized in advance or reauthorized after every three visits.
- Find out which providers are covered by your plan and what the financial penalties are if you see a professional outside the plan’s network.
- Find out the procedures for securing a second opinion and for getting a referral outside the plan in case one is needed.
- Get recommendations for the best professionals you can use under your plan’s benefits and procedures. Educators, clergy, and health care professionals can be helpful. Other parents can also be good sources for advice.
- Once you begin to receive care don’t be afraid to ask questions about treatment approaches, medications, referral options, and second opinions.
- If you think you are not getting adequate care, contact the patient representative at the health plan. Share your concerns and find out your options.
- I hope you never have to resort to them, but many states now have offices for health care complaints in either the department of health or the attorney general’s office.
The National Comorbidity Survey-Adolescent Supplement NCS-A is a nationally representative face-to-face survey of 10,123 adolescents aged 13–18 years in the continental U.S. DSM-IV mental disorders were assessed using a modified version of the fully structured World Health Organization Composite International Diagnostic Interview.
Results
Anxiety disorders were the most common condition (31.9%), followed by behavior disorders (19.1%), mood disorders (14.3%), and substance use disorders (11.4%), with approximately 40% of those with one class of disorder also meeting criteria for another class of lifetime disorder. The overall prevalence of disorders with severe impairment and/or distress was 22.2%; (11.2% with mood disorders; 8.3% with anxiety disorders; 9.6% behavior disorders). The median age of onset for disorder classes was earliest for anxiety (6 years), followed by 11 years for behavior, 13 years for mood, and 15 years for substance use disorders.
Conclusions
These findings provide the first prevalence data on a broad range of mental disorders in a nationally representative sample of U.S. adolescents. Approximately one in every 4–5 youth in the U.S. meets criteria for a mental disorder with severe impairment across their lifetime. The likelihood that common mental disorders in adults first emerge in childhood and adolescence highlights the need for a transition from the common focus on treatment of U.S. youth to that of prevention and early intervention.
Get Started!
- Intake Process:
- complete eligibility form (takes ~25 minutes)
- free assessment
- $200 deposit holds next available slot
- Once the Eligibility Form (see button below) has been submitted our Clinical Intake Specialist, Katie Frits, will be in contact within one business day to schedule an in-person assessment. If you have any trouble with this form call Renew at 913.768.6606 and press 0.
- At the assessment we will provide you a written review of your insurance benefits and out-of-pocket costs.