Teen and Adolescent Therapy

Adolescence is a time of major change across all aspects of life: emotional, cognitive, behavioral, social, and physical. However, this development can sometimes be interrupted, and the course of an adolescent's trajectory can be changed. Sometimes, 'bumps in the road' can last longer than expected, and if not addressed, these issues can evolve into more serious mental health problems.

Common Problems in Adolescence

There a number of mental health problems that we often see in our teen clients. Below are some common examples of what we help our teen clients cope with and overcome.

Eating Disorders: When food and body image issues go beyond minor complaints about appearance, or picky eating habits, teens can be stuck in patterns of an eating disorder.

Warning signs of an eating disorder can include:

Eating in secret
Weighing oneself repetitively
Being afraid to eat or gain weight
Spending way too much time making food choices or eating food
Seeing abnormal fluctuations in weight
Spending a lot of time in front of a mirror
Obsessively complaining about how they look

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD): Many people jokingly talk about themselves being 'clean freaks' or 'hyper-organized', and these can actually be healthy traits! This is very different than having a real case of OCD. When intrusive thoughts cause your teen to spend more and more time on simple tasks, or their minds feel out of control and cause them massive amounts of stress, your child may be dealing with OCD.

Warning signs of OCD can include:

Repetitive intrusive thoughts that do not stop, even with effort
Unwanted mental images that interrupt daily functioning
Increasingly ritualistic behaviors that cause your teen to spend too much time on basic tasks
Odd or eccentric preferences that your teen cannot explain
Very rigid lifestyles that do not adapt to changing circumstances

Anxiety and Depression: All adolescence comes with periods of highs and lows that are normal and completely age appropriate. Studying and stressing for a test, getting rejected by a friend or romantic interest, messing up at work, or losing in a sport can all cause short-term emotions that, while painful, are part of the human experience. However, when these emotions persist beyond what is expected, or are so intense that the teen can't function in daily life, anxiety or depression may be at play.

Warning signs of anxiety and depression can include:

Altered sleep patterns
Social isolation or a refusal to be alone
Avoiding schoolwork
Giving up favorite hobbies or interests
Suddenly eating more or less
Very short tempers
Decreased self-esteem and self-confidence

Difficulty Growing Up: For some growing teens, adolescence can feel like a step into adulthood and the freedom to be who they want to be. For others, it can feel like an involuntary end to a childhood that they are not ready to let go of. When this happens, teens can struggle to move beyond their old expectations of life.

Warning signs of a 'failure to launch' can include:

Refusing to find age-appropriate work
Deliberately refusing to complete academic assignments
Avoiding discussions of 'the next stage' of life, such as college selection or career interests
Tantrums
Social isolation
Over-indulging in comforts such as hobbies

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How Treatment Works

The first step in any successful treatment is to complete an intake assessment. This step is crucial for a few reasons:

It helps your therapist understand what the problem is and what may be driving it
It helps your therapist figure it if they are the right fit for your needs
It lets you and your teen figure it if your therapist is the right fit for you

After this assessment, you and your therapist can work together to create a custom solution to address your unique problems. Our therapeutic approaches are based on scientific evidence and your therapist's clinical experiences.

Depending on what you are coming to therapy to work on, your therapist can provide you with Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT) strategies, family therapy, Exposure and Response Prevention Therapy (ERP), Cognitive-Processing Therapy (CPT), and a variety of other approaches to address you and your child's needs.

What Healing Looks Like

Healing from mental health problems in adolescence truly looks different for each individual person. Factors such as your child's personality, social experiences, and the condition they are recovering from all play a role. However, there are some common factors we tend to see across all clients that indicate we are 'getting somewhere'.

First, your teen should be engaging with their academics more seriously, and their attendance/participation in school should be improving. Homework should be getting done with fewer arguments, and the quality of that work should also be better.

Second, their 'daily battery' will tend to increase. Our clients who start their therapy in a tough spot usually have little interest in friends or activities, or are totally consumed with their comfort coping-skills in an obsessive way. Improvement in this area tends to look more like an even and consistent lifestyle: some time spent hanging out with peers and having fun, but this gets thoughtfully balanced against other obligations and interests.

Third, they are thinking about the future with a more open and hopeful tone. They may talk about early career ambitions, college goals, or a desire to one day take care of themselves independently. This can be matched with age-appropriate efforts to be more independent, such as by doing their own laundry or working a part-time job.

Most importantly, our clients who are doing well talk about "feeling like myself again". Their parents often comment that they feel like they are talking with their kid again, rather than the symptoms that cloud their real personality.

Adolescence is a time marked by a real focus on 'becoming who you are supposed to be', and when recovery is well underway, living out this saying can be the best part of getting well.

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