Michael Y. Simon

Psychotherapist, Author and Parent Educator Practical Help for Parents

  • San Francisco Bay Area CA

Psychotherapist, Author, Educator and Public Speaker

Contact

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Biography

Michael Y. Simon, LMFT is a psychotherapist in private practice, independent school counselor, public speaker/parent educator and author of The Approximate Parent: Discovering the Strategies That Work with Your Teenager. Michael has been delivering engaging, informative and humorous workshops, keynotes and other invited talks since 1998 (a sample of which are listed below).


Michael's adult life has been enlivened by creating and maintaining public-private endeavors to help discover, promote and respect the potentials and abilities of children, youth and family. He is widely considered an expert on adolescents and adolescent development and is the founder of Practical Help for Parents, a support organization for those parents, educators, mental health professionals and policymakers who work daily with teens.


Michael has both an intensive and broad background in clinical psychology, adolescent development, religious studies and philosophy, teaching at both the university- and high-school level. He has worked as a school counselor at Bay Area independent schools (Bentley and Marin Academy), as a parent educator (at Parents' Place in Marin), co-director of The Marina Counseling Center in San Francisco and long-time Executive Director of the San Francisco Psychotherapy Research Group. He has been in private practice for close to 17 years and specializes in working with adolescents and their families, although he also sees adult individuals, couples, families and children.


In 2012 he completed work on The Approximate Parent: Discovering the Strategies That Work with Your Teenager (Fine Optics Press, 2012). Thomas De Zengotita, award-winning author of Mediated: How the Media Shapes Our World and the Way We Live in It, called Michael's work "a brilliant synthesis of theory and practice, of research and application that aims directly at how teenagers actually live in this mediated world.”


Industry Expertise

Mental Health Care
Program Development
Education/Learning

Areas of Expertise

Teens and Digital Media
Alcohol
Drugs and Parties: New Ways for Understanding

Education

San Francisco State University

M.S.

Clinical Psychology

1996

Temple University

M.A.

Religious Studies/Philosophy

1991

San Francisco State University

Bachelor of Arts (B.A.)

Clinical Psychology

1987

Affiliations

  • American Association of Marriage and Family Therapy
  • Clinical Member; California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists (CAMFT); Learning Disabilities Association of America; Learning Disabilities Association of California; CHADD of Northern California (Children and Adults with ADHD); International C

Testimonials

Head of School

Brentwood School

'Michael has the gift of explaining, in straightforward language, seemingly impenetrable adolescent behaviors to both parents and teachers alike."

Co-Chair

Council on Contemporary Families

"Michael Simon knows more about teenagers than anyone I know. For years, he has been helping parents all over the United States in his popular speaking series on parenting adolescents. "

Anthropologist, educator

New York University / The Dalton School

“If you are the parent of a teenager and you are paying any attention at all, you know that, besides dealing with the classic adolescent issues, your child is negotiating an environment that has been radically redefined by the new media—the Internet, iPhone, Facebook world. If you are at all self-aware, you probably realize that you don’t understand that environment very well. There are plenty of media experts out there and plenty of parenting experts too – maybe too many - but, in Michael Simon, you have someone whose life’s work has been in media theory and adolescent development. He has mastered the literature in both fields and has been putting it all to work as a high school counselor and therapist for almost 20 years.

Event Appearances

Teens, Drugs and Parties

YPO (Young Presidents' Organization) Conference on "The Hidden Logic of Teens"  Half Moon Bay, California (Ritz Carlton)

2009-10-22

Beyond Parental Control(s): How Digital Media are Changing The Ways Your Teens Think and Feel

Invited Talk  College Preparatory School, Oakland, California

2012-02-08

Responding to School Crisis: An Approach to Managing Traumatic Events in the School

Invited Talk  Marin Academy, San Rafael, CA

2011-08-18

Show All +

Sample Talks

Teens, Alcohol, Drugs, and Parties: A New Way of Understanding

It’s a rare day that parents of teens don’t wonder about drugs and parties. Most parents want to know specific information about what they should tell their adolescents in order not to have them do certain things (e.g., go to a party, smoke too much, get drunk, not have unsafe sex or not have sex at all). This workshop will let you know just what is at stake in dealing with the issues of parties and drugs--and give you a new, helpful framework for understanding adolescent risk-taking.

Style

Availability

  • Keynote
  • Moderator
  • Panelist
  • Workshop Leader
  • Author Appearance

Fees

$500 to $3500*Will consider certain engagements for no fee
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