Adolescent, Young Adult, and Family Psychotherapy Services
About Dr. Abbott
Dr. Scott Abbott is the founder and manager of Arete. He personally provides or oversees all clinical services provided by Arete, and he has over 25 years experience working with adolescents, young adults, families, and schools. Arete clinicians are experts in treating adolescent Depression, Anxiety, Bipolar Disorder, ADD/ADHD, and learning differences. Along with these concerns, Dr. Abbott’s practice often focuses on helping adolescents and young adults who are struggling with academic under-performance, conduct disorders, and interpersonal conflicts.
Dr. Abbott has received awards for excellence for both his clinical work and his research on post-modern approaches to psychotherapy with adopted adolescents. He has supervised programs and clinicians in a number of settings, taught psychology at the graduate level in Berkeley, CA, and was most recently on staff at the Institute of Living’s Intensive Outpatient Program in Hartford, Connecticut. Dr. Abbott serves as a consultant for a number of New Haven County schools, and is the Director of Adolescent & Young Adult Services for Arete.
Originally a classics scholar, Dr. Abbott has worked with adolescents and their families in residential, hospital, school, and outpatient settings since 1987. His initial training in adolescent psychiatry occurred in Northern California where he served as a counselor for several therapeutic boarding school programs under the direction of senior students of noted therapeutic pioneers Abraham Maslow, Virginia Satir, and Fritz Perls.
Following his residential experience, Dr. Abbott pursued his doctoral degree in Berkeley under the guidance of Dr. Philip Cushman, originally a student of the celebrated “cult-busting” California psychologist Dr. Margaret Singer and author of the widely used graduate textbook, “Constructing The Self, Constructing America”. Dr. Cushman — beloved rabbi, historian, and psychoanalytic thinker — inducted Dr. Abbott into his lineage of deeply respectful and socially conscious person-centered psychology and its application to therapeutic collaboration with young people in need.
Dr. Abbott’s areas of research, teaching, and clinical specialization include adolescent and young adult group, individual, and family therapy, adoption issues, learning differences, conduct and school problems, depression, and adolescent interpersonal and social difficulties. His clinical approach is defined by a gentle and respectful Client-Centered and Interpersonal theoretical stance, and he has received extensive training in Narrative Therapy from Dr. Richard Maisel, a student of Michael White – founder of the Narrative Therapy approach to counseling.
Along with maintaining a thriving private clinical practice, Dr. Abbott has co-authored chapters of numerous books and studies. Examples of his work include "Emotional Literacy in the Classroom: Strategies for Students with Special Needs" produced by the Health, Emotion, & Behavior Laboratory at Yale University under the direction and editorship of director Marc A. Brackett, Ph.D. This is a work designed to further the Yale HEB laboratory's extensive implementation of Social and Emotional Literacy programs in secondary schools throughout New England and the Mid-Atlantic region. A more recent example is his chapter in Dr. Philip Cushman's (2021) textbook on graduate training programs entitled, "Hermeneutic Approaches to Interpretive Research", a study intended to improve the training and education of clinical psychologists nationally.
Dr. Abbott is also a registered yoga teacher, and has spent many years studying and practicing Eastern philosophy and meditation, and is an expert at blending holistic and yogic practices with conventional Western psychotherapy. His private practice includes frequent collaborations with Ayurvedic doctors, Yoga Therapy specialists, and Naturopathic doctors as well as medically-trained psychiatrists.
Thanks Scott! We are very proud of A - there is no underestimating the positive impact Dr. Reynolds and you had on A (and us) when we needed it most - K and I will always be grateful. All the best".
