The LAUNCH Program

There are several options for group therapy. Each group is a skills group in contrast to a typical therapy group. The overarching goal of a skills group is to help each participant increase their own skill level to help cope with challenging life situations or psychological symptoms. The skills groups will typically cover one skill each week and ask each participant to complete a homework assignment.

The Launch Group is a 16-week group that covers a variety of skills to aid in making the transition towards greater independence. Topics covered include mindfulness, distress tolerance, emotion regulation, interpersonal effectiveness, anxiety management, healthy social media use, healthy sexual behavior and substance use, and effective use of medications.

Tuesday, 4 – 5 p.m.

Dialectical Behavior Therapy is a treatment developed to help manage intense emotions. The DBT skills group covers the following areas in depth: Mindfulness, Walking the Middle Path, Distress Tolerance, Interpersonal Effectiveness, and Emotion Regulation. The full course is 28 weeks.

Tuesday, 5 – 6 p.m.

When you come in for an intake, you will meet with individually member of our treatment team. Depending upon your preference and the specifics of your situation, your parents may be asked to join the appointment or meet with the therapist individually. During this appointment, you will be asked a variety of questions about the reason you are seeking treatment, issues in your life that are bothering you, your background, social life, and what you might want to work on in treatment. You may be asked to fill out a series of questionnaires to give us more information about how you are feeling and thinking about things.

Please note: An initial appointment is not a guarantee of treatment. Depending upon the needs of the individual, we work together to develop a plan that best meets the needs of the situation.

After the initial psychiatric evaluation, we meet as a treatment team to develop a comprehensive treatment plan. Following this appointment, we will meet with you to discuss the treatment recommendations. You and your therapist will take these treatment recommendations to develop a treatment plan collaboratively.

Get started on treatment! This might be a combination of individual treatment, group therapy or medication management. You and your clinician will check in at regular intervals during the course of treatment to monitor progress.

Dr. Cohen joined the Department of Psychiatry at MedStar Georgetown University Hospital in 2016. He provides clinical care on the inpatient psychiatric unit and in the outpatient clinic for the Department of Psychiatry. He teaches and provides clinical supervision for Georgetown medical students, psychiatry residents, and child psychiatry fellows. Dr. Cohen completed a child and adolescent psychiatry fellowship at Georgetown University. He completed a psychiatry internship and residency in The Einstein Healthcare Network in Philadelphia, and he earned his M.D. from Jefferson Medical College. Prior to medical school he earned a B.A. in Philosophy from Wesleyan University and then worked in Utah as a wilderness therapy field instructor for adolescents. Particular areas of clinical and research interest include mood and anxiety disorders, emergency and disaster psychiatry, and adolescents and emerging adult aged populations.

Shana Simkin, LCMFT, joined the Department of Psychiatry in 2019 as a clinical therapist. Trained in Jon Kabat Zinn’s Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), Shana incorporates mindfulness techniques into her practice with children, adolescents, young adults, and families. She takes a strengths-based perspective and helps families consider their challenges within the context of their relationships. Shana received a Masters in Couple and Family Therapy from the University of Maryland and a Bachelor of Science from Syracuse University. Her clinical and research interests include mood and anxiety disorders, relationship challenges, and issues related to emerging adulthood.

Dr. Vijay joined the Department of Psychiatry in 2016 as a clinical psychologist within the LAUNCH program for Emerging Adults.She received her undergraduate degree at the University of Michigan, her Master’s in Education, in Risk and Prevention, at Harvard University, and her doctorate in psychology at the University of Nevada, Reno. She completed her internship at the Department of Veterans Affairs, Maryland Health Care System/University of Maryland Consortium. Her clinical specialties include psychological issues related to emerging adulthood, the treatment of trauma, sexual victimization, and Dialectical Behavior Therapy. Her research focuses on factors in clinical supervision, process and outcome research in Dialectical Behavior Therapy, implementation of effective DBT programs in outpatient and residential settings, and the role of emotion regulation in psychopathology.