Teen & Adolescent Psychiatry for Tacoma Patients
Adolescence is a high-stakes window for mental health, and Tacoma families often struggle to find a provider who truly listens. Willow & Stone provides thoughtful, collaborative teen and adolescent psychiatric care — evaluation, medication management when needed, and an integrative lens — delivered to Tacoma families by secure telehealth.
When to seek help for your teen
- ✓Persistent sadness, irritability, or withdrawal
- ✓A drop in grades, focus, or motivation
- ✓Anxiety that interferes with school or friendships
- ✓Changes in sleep, appetite, or energy
- ✓Talk of hopelessness (seek emergency help for any safety concern)
Our Treatment Approach
Dr. Forbes works with Tacoma teens and their parents to understand what's really going on — screening for ADHD, anxiety, and depression while considering sleep, nutrition, and the gut-brain connection. Care is unhurried and family-centered, with medication used judiciously and always alongside root-cause support.
Teen & Adolescent Psychiatry in Tacoma: the local picture
Tacoma is a working port city at the southern end of Puget Sound. The Port of Tacoma's terminals and the industry on the tideflats run around the clock, and Joint Base Lewis-McChord, one of the largest military installations in the country, sits a few exits south on I-5 — so active-duty soldiers and airmen, veterans, and military spouses are a routine part of the city rather than a specialty within it. The University of Washington Tacoma, the University of Puget Sound, and Pacific Lutheran University add students, many of them working while they study. Recognisable presentations follow: post-traumatic stress alongside depression, sleep disordered since a deployment or a night shift, and attention problems that surface after a change of role.
Getting care in Tacoma
Military healthcare and the VA both serve the area, and both carry waits; civilian psychiatric practices in Pierce County are fewer than the population needs, and Seattle's are a congested drive north. Shift workers on the port and in the hospitals find that clinic hours are their working hours. Service members also raise a concern that keeps many of them from being evaluated at all — whether treatment will affect duty or clearance — and a private appointment taken from home addresses the visibility of that decision directly. Video visits also survive the next set of orders, as long as the family stays in Washington.
What this means for Tacoma patients
Teenagers' body clocks already run late, and a long grey season pushes them later still — darker mornings, less time outside, more evenings indoors on screens. The result is often irritability, slipping grades, and withdrawal that families read as a personality change rather than a seasonal one. Asking what the winter looks like compared with the summer tends to clarify a great deal, and it helps decide whether sleep timing, outdoor light, or treatment for depression should come first.
Adolescents in military families absorb the strain of deployment cycles and repeated relocation, and the resulting anxiety or withdrawal is often attributed to a recent move when the pattern predates it. Continuity matters enormously for these teenagers, because each relocation otherwise means starting over with a new clinician mid-treatment.
When a parent works evenings or overnights, a teenager frequently carries responsibilities that would ordinarily be an adult's. That is worth naming directly in the evaluation: what presents as withdrawal or irritability is sometimes the reasonable response of an adolescent doing more than their share, and it changes what the treatment plan should address.
In a university town, adolescents grow up surrounded by visible academic competition, and the pressure often arrives years before college does. Evaluating a teenager here means taking seriously how much of the presentation is environmental — and being honest with families when the answer is that the expectations, not the child, are what needs adjusting.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do you provide teen psychiatry by telehealth in Tacoma?
Yes. Tacoma teens can be evaluated and treated by secure video with a parent or guardian involved as appropriate.
What ages do you see?
Willow & Stone focuses on adolescents and adults. Contact us to confirm whether telehealth is the right fit for your Tacoma teen.
Is a parent involved in the visit?
Yes — for minors, a parent or guardian participates. We partner with Tacoma families throughout care.
Do you take insurance for teen psychiatry in Tacoma?
Care for Tacoma patients is direct-pay: Willow & Stone accepts insurance only for patients in Texas, and provides superbills for possible out-of-network reimbursement with no prior authorizations.
If you need help right now
Willow & Stone is an outpatient practice and is not an emergency service. If you or someone you care about is in immediate danger, call 911.
For urgent mental health support at any hour, call or text 988 to reach the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, or text HOME to 741741 for the Crisis Text Line. Both are free, confidential, and available 24/7 nationwide.
Other Services for Tacoma
Related reading
← Back to all Tacoma services
Your healing begins with a conversation.
Start with a cash-pay telehealth consultation — no insurance, no prior authorizations, no waitlists.
Schedule Your ConsultationOr call (469) 726-3768
If you are experiencing a mental health emergency, call or text 988 (Suicide & Crisis Lifeline) or call 911.