Spangler Counseling Group | Bellevue, WA

Understanding is
where we begin.

Your teen or young adult is trying to figure out who they are. We take the time to understand how they work, and we build our support around that.

Schedule a Consultation See what we mean

Every Person Makes Sense

When you take the time to see someone through their own experience, they start to make sense. That is always where we start.

A Space of Their Own

We sit outside the rest of their world. Someone they can talk to who has no other role in their life. A place for the things they are still figuring out how to say.

Building What Lasts

We are working toward something that holds. A grounded sense of who they are that they carry into everything that comes next.

What You Might Be Seeing

You know something.
You are just not sure
what to do with it yet.

Most parents who reach out are already paying close attention. They can feel that something is off. They want to help and are not always sure how.

Sometimes it comes on slowly. Sometimes it appears out of nowhere. Either way, watching your kid struggle and feeling like you cannot quite reach them is one of the harder things a parent carries.

Reaching out is a good instinct. It is one of the most caring things you can do to back stop their developmental path.

Talk to us about what you are seeing →

"I want them to know I support them, whatever they decide to do. I just want them to be okay."

"I am worried about this next transition and I do not know how to help them through it."

"Something changed and I cannot tell if it is a phase or something more."

"I keep wondering if I should have seen this sooner."

"Every option in front of us feels like the wrong one."

How We Help

We take the time to
actually know them.

Every person arrives with their own way of taking in the world. Understanding that is the starting point for everything we do.

We help young people develop their own lens for understanding themselves. The goal is genuine self-knowledge, and the confidence that grows from it.

We are developmental counselors. That means the mentoring, skill building, and identity work at the core of what we do is held by trained professionals who can also recognize and address what sits beneath the surface when it needs attention.

Ask us how this might fit your family →

Get to know them

Before knowing how to help, we need to know the person. How they think. What matters to them. Where they feel most like themselves and where they feel furthest from it.

Build a real relationship

We give the relationship time to root. We sit outside family, school, and peer life. A space where the parts of themselves they are still figuring out how to hold can come forward safely.

Shape the support to fit

Once we understand how someone works, we build from there. Mentoring, skill building, self-exploration, all of it tuned to this specific young person.

Develop identity and purpose

The heart of the work. Helping a young person settle into who they are, find their own motivation, and build a sense of self that holds over time.

Address what gets in the way

When anxiety, depression, or other struggles are blocking growth, we address them as part of the larger picture, in service of the foundation we are building together.

Professional Partnerships

Collaborating with the people
who already know them.

We believe that supporting a young person works best when we respect the ecosystem already around them. We coordinate care smoothly to ensure continuity.

For Clinical Providers

We provide diagnostic-informed, relational care for therapists, psychiatrists, and pediatricians looking for highly specialized developmental and neurodivergent-affirming tracking for clients aged 13–25.

For Educators & Schools

We partner actively with school psychologists, educational consultants, and counselors to coordinate academic supports, backing up executive functioning structures and complex transition plans.

Our Clinical Team

Collaborative care,
shared grounding.

Every counselor in our practice is trained directly within our developmental, neurodivergent-affirming approach. Johnny Spangler provides close clinical oversight and regular weekly supervision, ensuring that every family benefits from both individual relational warmth and senior clinical expertise.

Founder and Clinical Lead

Johnny Spangler

Affiliate Faculty, Antioch University Seattle | Neurodiversity Concentration and Certificate Program

Johnny is a licensed counselor, educator, and supervisor dedicated to reshaping how we support adolescents, families, and neurodivergent young adults. Moving away from rigid, clinical checklists, his relational approach builds genuine emotional safety, self-knowledge, and agency. Alongside his private practice, Johnny serves as an Affiliate Professor at Antioch University Seattle, anchoring his work in cutting-edge, neuro-affirming pedagogy and universal design for learning.

As clinical director, Johnny provides comprehensive oversight and weekly supervision for the practice’s associate clinicians. By directly training his team within his specialized relational style, he ensures every family receives a consistent blend of adaptive, collaborative care and deep clinical expertise. His focus remains entirely on breaking through traditional therapeutic barriers to meet clients exactly where they are.

Clinical Supervision Neuro-Affirming Care Developmental Transitions Community Education

Associate Counselor

Sean Flikke

MA in Counseling | Trained & Supervised Directly within the Spangler Clinical Method

Sean brings a vibrant, grounded relational style that makes therapy feel immediate, safe, and collaborative for young people who are often resistant to traditional counseling. Before transitioning to clinical work, he spent 15 years in education, youth coaching, and mentorship. This extensive background gives him an intuitive, real-world understanding of the social, academic, and developmental pressures kids face today, making him exceptionally relatable to both teens and parents.

He specializes in connecting with young people navigating executive functioning challenges, intense transitions, and neurodivergent experiences. Trained extensively within our relational approach and directly mentored by Johnny, Sean blends his deep capacity for empathy with a background in improv comedy to bring warmth, spontaneity, and absolute non-judgment to his sessions. He receives direct case consultation and weekly supervision from Johnny, combining senior clinical backing with focused availability.

Active Openings Young Adult Transitions Executive Skills Relational Safety

Who We Work With

Beautifully
complicated
young people.

Teens and young adults of unique strength and complexity, carrying far more than the people around them realize.

Some of our clients carry diagnoses. Many do not. What they share is a sense of standing at a crossroads, often one their family does not yet fully know how to map for them.

The work is ultimately about who they are becoming. We help each young person develop the core of their adult self: their identity, their sense of purpose, the grounded confidence that comes from genuinely knowing themselves.

Reach out and tell us about your person →

Adolescent Identity Development

The work of figuring out who you are before you fully know who you want to be. Belonging, self-worth, the particular weight of becoming.

Young Adult Transitions

College, first jobs, leaving home, finding direction. Early adulthood carries real developmental weight. We help young people navigate it with more clarity.

Motivation, Purpose, and Direction

For young people who possess unique, unrecognized strengths but find themselves completely stuck. Who sense something is off but cannot yet name what. We help bring their picture into focus.

A Natural Fit for Neurodivergent Youth

We work through a neurodevelopmental lens. Individual processing style is where understanding begins. For neurodivergent young people, that lens lets us hold all layers of their experience at once.

The Things They Cannot Say at Home

We sit outside every other context in their life. A space for the questions they are not ready to ask anyone who already knows them. Real safety for real exploration.

When More Support Is Needed

We recognize and treat anxiety, depression, OCD, executive functioning challenges, autism support, and suicidal ideation. The professional depth is there whenever it is needed.

"Every person makes sense. The work is learning how."

Spangler Counseling

Questions Parents Ask

Things worth
talking through.

We want you to feel fully comfortable before making any clinical commitments. Here are common areas we discuss.

Set up a free consultation →

How does your collaborative care model work?

Johnny Spangler, our Founder, acts as the Clinical Director and supervisor. He actively coordinates on case planning and hosts weekly clinical supervision with Sean. This means when your teen works with Sean, they receive dedicated relational focus while being backed by Johnny's extensive graduate faculty clinical expertise.

My teen does not want therapy. Can this still work?

Often, yes. Most teens resist being evaluated or "fixed." Sean specializes in setting a warm, non-judgmental atmosphere outside the pressure of family or school dynamics, helping them feel met on their own terms. This usually melts therapeutic resistance quickly.

Did I cause this?

Almost never in the way you fear. Young people usually struggle because of a friction mismatch between their specific developmental path and the complex environments around them. Asking the question simply highlights how deeply you care.

What if there are things they cannot say to us at home?

That is a natural, healthy milestone of adolescent development. Developing an independent inner life is healthy. We offer a secure, objective container outside the home where they can explore hard questions safely, bringing clarity back to their relationship with you.

How do you approach neurodiversity?

We work through a strictly neurodiversity-affirming lens. Whether carrying a diagnosis (ADHD, Autism, Executive Dysfunction) or navigating general learning/processing differences, we focus on identifying their specific processing profile and building tailored skills rather than attempting to enforce behavioral assimilation.

How do we get started?

A simple consultation call. It is a warm, low-pressure conversation to discuss your teen's background, explain our fit, and connect you with Sean's active caseload intakes if appropriate.

Start Here

You do not have to
figure this out alone.

Tell us a little about what is going on. Johnny or Sean will follow up honestly about how we can support your teen or young adult.

If our collaborative practice is not the right fit, we will gladly point you to trusted Pacific Northwest resources that are.

LocationAnywhere in Washington via telehealth

CaseloadsDirect intakes led by Associate Counselor Sean

OversightAll cases supervised by Clinical Lead Johnny Spangler

First callComplimentary 20-minute consult

Reach Out

First Name

Last Name

Phone

I am reaching out as a:

Reaching out about:

What is going on?

We respond within two business days. Intake consults are held by phone or secure video.

Understanding iswhere we begin.

You know something.You are just not surewhat to do with it yet.

We take the time toactually know them.

Collaborating with the peoplewho already know them.

Collaborative care,shared grounding.