Individual Psychotherapy
Dr. Rendell provides individual psychotherapy to children, adolescents, and adults. Her warm, empathic style helps clients feel at ease and engage in meaningful therapeutic work. She specializes in treating anxiety and depression, as well as in working with individuals who are struggling to meet their goals socially or academically. Dr. Rendell’s integrative approach is rooted in cognitive behavioral theory and individualized to meet each client’s strengths and needs.
Conditions treated include:
Anxiety
Depression
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder
Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder
Relationship Issues
Phobias
Low Self-Esteem
Parent Guidance and SPACE Treatment
Parenthood is not always as we anticipated. Dr. Rendell has a unique interest in supporting parents to identify and utilize effective skills to promote positive social and emotional development in their children. Dr. Rendell pulls from her experience as a clinician, former teacher, and mother herself in helping parents manage the stressors and demands of parenting, relationships, and other responsibilities, while building nurturing and supportive parent-child relationships. Parent guidance may be done in conjunction with child therapy or as a stand-alone service.
Dr. Rendell is additionally trained in SPACE (Supportive Parenting for Anxious Childhood Emotions), an evidence-based treatment for parents of children and adolescents with anxiety, OCD, and related challenges.
Psychoeducational Evaluations
Comprehensive psychoeducational evaluations provide students, parents, and teachers with a road map to best educate each child. As a former educator, Dr. Rendell has the unique experience of working with students and teachers in both schools and clinical settings. Her evaluations are the first step in identifying a student’s cognitive, academic, and social emotional profile. Personalized to identify each individual’s strengths and weaknesses, Dr. Rendell’s evaluations provide specific recommendations tailored to support students in achieving their goals.
The process:
Screening Call: Dr. Rendell speaks with parents to determine the most appropriate type of evaluation to meet their child’s needs. Whereas most children derive benefit from a comprehensive psychoeducational evaluation, some are seeking a more targeted assessment, such as for AD/HD or to provide updated academic achievement testing.
Parent Consultation: Parents meet with Dr. Rendell for a one-hour consultation session to share information about their child’s developmental history, presenting concerns, and goals for the evaluation.
Collateral Information: With parents’ permission, Dr. Rendell connects with other professionals who work with the student, including teachers, tutors, OTs, SLPs, coaches, psychiatrists, and psychotherapists, to gather broad-reaching information about the child’s presentation in a variety of settings.
Testing Sessions: For a comprehensive psychoeducational evaluation, the student meets with Dr. Rendell individually for approximately seven to nine hours, spaced over two to three days. During this time, Dr. Rendell conducts assessments of cognitive abilities, academic achievement, memory, language, executive functioning, attention, impulse control, and social emotional functioning. A comprehensive battery looks different for each student, as Dr. Rendell tailors the assessments given based on the presenting concerns and the child’s performance on measures administered. Dr. Rendell uses specific, sensitive, normed measures to compare each student’s performance with age or grade-matched peers. Throughout the evaluation, Dr. Rendell seeks to make the student comfortable, and despite the vast amount of information gathered, most students enjoy the testing process.
Comprehensive Report: In addition to her years of evaluating students, Dr. Rendell calls on her past experiences in school settings, as both teacher and school psychologist, to identify each student’s unique learning profile, strengths, and vulnerabilities. Each report includes the child’s developmental history, analysis of test data, summary and clinical impressions, diagnosis (if applicable), and recommendations. The written report is meant to serve as a comprehensive document that can be used to describe the student’s profile and guide parents and providers in prioritizing next steps.
Parent Feedback Session: Dr. Rendell meets with parents for approximately one hour to review the test findings and clinical impressions, and to help them consider next steps and prioritization of recommendations.
Additional Follow-Up Services: Dr. Rendell is also available to provide brief student feedback sessions, where she dives into the results with the student using developmentally-appropriate language. She also frequently attends PPT or CSE meetings for students she has evaluated to provide input on development of IEPs or 504 Plans.