In recent years, adolescent mental health has shifted from a growing concern to a national crisis. The 2021 U.S. Surgeon General’s advisory underscored the scale of the issue, highlighting a significant rise in anxiety, depression, and behavioral disorders among youth. Simultaneously, the psychiatric workforce continues to face systemic shortages—particularly among providers equipped to serve children and adolescents.
Within this constrained landscape, Dr. Myleme Ojinga Harrison, MD, offers a replicable clinical model rooted in accessibility, evidence-based care, and multigenerational engagement. As a board-certified psychiatrist and president of The Carter Clinic, P.A., Dr. Harrison oversees a multisite practice with twelve locations across North Carolina, serving pediatric, adolescent, and adult populations through both in-person and telepsychiatric modalities.
His practice reflects the core challenge and opportunity in youth psychiatry today: delivering tailored interventions that balance clinical rigor with relational trust.
Clinical Framework for Treating Adolescent Anxiety and ADHD
Dr. Harrison’s work emphasizes diagnostic precision, particularly in high-prevalence disorders like generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Adolescent presentations often involve overlapping symptom domains—executive dysfunction, somatic complaints, school refusal, or dysregulated mood—necessitating a multimodal evaluation strategy.
“Treatment planning must be developmentally attuned,” Harrison notes. “We’re not just measuring DSM-5 criteria—we’re contextualizing behavior in terms of neurological maturation, environmental stability, and psychosocial stressors.”
The Carter Clinic uses a combination of structured clinical interviews, rating scales, and collateral information from schools and caregivers. Interventions are tailored accordingly. For anxiety disorders, CBT with exposure hierarchies is commonly used, often augmented with SSRIs when clinically indicated. For ADHD, stimulant titration is approached conservatively and always within the framework of functional outcome tracking, not merely symptom suppression.
Importantly, Dr. Harrison eschews protocolized care. Instead, his team dynamically adjusts treatment plans, integrating DBT skills, psychoeducation, and motivational interviewing to support autonomy and treatment adherence.
The Role of Trust and Continuity in Adolescent Psychiatry
Trust is not incidental in adolescent care—it is foundational to both diagnostic accuracy and therapeutic compliance. Adolescents often enter treatment amid significant ambivalence, shaped by prior negative experiences, parental conflict, or cultural stigma surrounding mental health.
“Therapeutic alliance in this population must be earned,” says Dr. Harrison. “That starts with attunement to power dynamics and language use. Adolescents are sensitive to condescension and often disengage when providers lead with pathology rather than partnership.”
To counter this, Harrison prioritizes relational continuity, maintaining provider consistency throughout the course of treatment. Clinicians within the Carter Clinic are trained to establish collaborative rapport, with an emphasis on shared decision-making and the use of developmentally appropriate communication.
Research supports this approach: studies published in JAMA Psychiatry and Pediatrics consistently link therapeutic alliance with improved engagement, retention, and outcomes among youth.
Families as Active Stakeholders in Treatment Outcomes
Dr. Harrison’s clinical model assumes that adolescent mental health is never isolated from its familial context. As such, families are integrated into care plans from the outset, with structured psychoeducation sessions and clearly defined roles in reinforcement and monitoring strategies.
“Parental involvement is not optional—it’s predictive,” he explains. “The literature is clear: outcomes improve significantly when families are aligned with clinical goals and equipped with appropriate strategies.”
In conditions like ADHD or oppositional defiant disorder (ODD), behavioral interventions rely heavily on home reinforcement. In mood disorders, parental insight into early warning signs can prevent recurrence. The Carter Clinic facilitates family-based interventions through both individual parent coaching and multi-family group formats, when appropriate.
Importantly, the model avoids pathologizing caregivers. Instead, it employs a strengths-based lens, guiding families through emotional regulation, boundary-setting, and communication models rooted in attachment theory and systems-based frameworks.
A Scalable Model in a Strained System
What distinguishes the work of Ojinga Harrison MD is not only its clinical sophistication, but its scalability. The Carter Clinic’s footprint—twelve physical locations plus a robust telehealth infrastructure—allows for regional consistency in care delivery without compromising individualized treatment planning.
This scale is possible due to Harrison’s operational model, which blends centralized quality oversight with localized clinical autonomy. Providers are trained on standardized protocols (e.g., suicide risk assessments, trauma screening), while retaining flexibility in applying therapeutic modalities based on patient need.
Equally notable is the clinic’s focus on culturally responsive care. With a multilingual staff and locations in both urban and rural counties, The Carter Clinic is positioned to address persistent disparities in mental health access—particularly among Black, Latinx, and underserved youth populations.
Looking Ahead
As national conversations around youth mental health continue to evolve, clinical leaders like Dr. Myleme Ojinga Harrison offer a grounded perspective on what effective care actually looks like in practice. His commitment to whole-person, family-informed psychiatry is not an abstract ideal—it is a measurable, implementable model already serving thousands across North Carolina.
In a system defined by fragmentation and reactive policy, Dr. Harrison’s approach underscores a critical truth: adolescent psychiatry requires not only technical competence, but relational fluency, operational foresight, and cultural humility.
For clinicians, policymakers, and health systems navigating the adolescent mental health crisis, it’s a model worth watching—and emulating.
