Adolescents
The Challenges Adolescents Face
Adolescents are in a unique stage of development that often confuses and places enormous stress on the self, parents, and the family system. As teens rapidly change in physical, emotional, and cognitive ways, they struggle to make sense of these overwhelming changes.
Teenagers are often presented with having to make many choices when they perhaps don’t have the maturity, experience, or tools to understand what is best for them. Complex family dynamics, and school and social pressures can further burden the vulnerable adolescent, leading to symptoms of depression, anxiety, anger, frustration, isolation, risky behaviors, and substance abuse.
How We Work with Teens
With teenagers, we utilize a variety of therapeutic approaches to provide them with immediate tools for effective change. Using a holistic approach, we collaborate closely with parents from a family systems and developmental perspective. We also collaborate closely with schools, pediatricians, and psychiatrists to enhance a team approach.
Our goal is to work closely with your teenager to provide support, education, coping skills, and to create a deeper understanding of the ‘emotional storm’ underlying their symptoms and behaviors. We also work to serve as a bridge between parents and the adolescent, to enhance positive communication, open listening, and constructive ways to respond to each other.
The Importance of Including Parents
In our work, it is critical to foster parents’ developmental understanding of their teenager’s ‘separation and individuation’ process, so that the launching of your child in to adulthood is a healthy, supportive, and productive one.
The opportunity to facilitate your teen’s development and to enhance your own understanding of trust, independence, and responsibilities can be a challenging, but very rewarding process.
Being a teenager can be a challenging experience, for the teenager and for the family. Our task is to provide adolescents and their parents with a developmental understanding of adolescent changes and challenges. We also provide the tools that allow teens to make better choices, empower themselves, and help them achieve recovery, healing, and success.