Therapy for Teens
Through therapy, teens can address concerns such a depression, anxiety, relationship challenges, family dynamics trauma and stress, mood concerns, relationship challenges and their changing sense of self-awareness. Engaging teens in therapy focuses on building rapport and assisting them to verbalize their experiences and emotions with accuracy so that their support system can effectively support their growth.
Adolescents often benefit from safe emotional support from adults that are not in the parent role in their lives. A main developmental task of adolescence is individuation, or becoming your own person. This expected process can often feel like conflict and irritability between teens and parents. While this is typical behavior, it can be difficult to navigate — therapy can help.
Parents frequently ask us about how confidentiality during therapy works with their teens. We want therapy to be a safe space for a teen to freely explore their thoughts and feelings, and we do encourage parents to respect privacy of the process. Practically, this means we generally don’t provide detailed updates on the content of each therapy session. We are happy to share treatment plans and progress so that parents are aware of the overall plan and therapy. An important part of successful therapy for adolescents is the collaboration between the client, therapist, and parents.
If any issues of safety arise, we will always involve parents and communicate effectively to ensure safety with an appropriate plan and support.
