Is Your Teen Struggling?
Let’s face it–it’s tough to be a teen today. No longer children, but not yet adults, modern teens live in world that’s changing at a lightning fast pace. Teens face different pressures than their parents had to deal with and are constantly bombarded with conflicting information–and a lot of it does more harm than good. Teen Counseling today expands far beyond mental health disorders and provides a safe and healthy outlet to learn to better cope with their emotions, difficult situations, life skills, and making the best choices.
The Role Anxiety Plays
Teens are suffering from severe anxiety at an alarming rate–more than ever before. What’s causing the surge in anxious teens? A few factors to consider when assessing the anxiety epidemic:
Electronics and Social Media
Electronics provide a constant distraction from reality and priorities. It’s easier to avoid uncomfortable feelings and situations with an electronic device at your fingertips. Accomplishing a task takes a lot longer, too, when you’re not fully focused and engaged.
Social media offers a constant source of judgment and self-comparison. The lives that others show the world can lead to some pretty unrealistic expectations. For an anxious teen who’s feeling insecure to start with, to be reminded again and again of all of the wonderful happenings that you aren’t part of can take their toll over time.
Coping Skills
Changes in society and educational institutions have created an environment that promotes reactivity instead of resilience.
Children learn about issues like bullying from a very young age — the focus being on identifying the bullying actions and the most common solution being to notify an adult.
This is useful information designed with good intentions, but what about teaching kids how to understand how to cope with the emotions that arise in these situations? And how to manage difficult situations like these?
Teaching coping skills creates resilient teens that are equipped to better handle the ups and downs of life.
How Teen Counseling Can Help
As a teen, it’s not always easy to share life’s details with your parents. During this stage of development, it’s natural to start gaining opinions and interests independent of your parents. There are plenty of questions that teens have, and things that they want help with. It’s often hard for them to know where to turn to in these predicaments.
I take a warm and respectful approach to teen counseling. My role as a therapist allows teens to feel comfortable opening up to me without fear of shame or punishment. I’ve worked with hundreds of teens from all walks of life over the past several years and have been fortunate to see many success stories.
Some teens may be willing to come into counseling voluntarily–others may not. This is a situation that can be managed honestly and respectfully.
When I work with teens, I use a variety of approaches.
Teen Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, or CBT, is a type of evidence-based therapy that centers on how your thoughts, feelings and behaviors are inter-related. Utilizing the techniques and skills taught in cognitive behavioral therapy helps teens become more aware of their thoughts, actions and feelings so they can view difficult situations more clearly and respond more effectively.
Cognitive behavioral therapy is the most widely used therapy to treat anxiety.
It is also very effective at treating teens struggling with:
- Depression,
- Panic disorders,
- Addiction,
- Eating disorders,
- Obsessive-compulsive disorder, and
- Behavioral, emotional, and mental health challenges.
Teen Psychodynamic Therapy focuses on how early childhood and relations with others can affect our development. It is based on the idea that the unconscious holds onto painful feelings and memories that are too difficult for the conscious mind to process. Many children develop defenses such as denial to hide these memories and experiences from themselves. The aim of psychodynamic therapy is to bring the unconscious mind into consciousness. It helps a child or youth to experience and begin to understand their true, deep-rooted feelings in order to deal with them.
Psychodynamic therapy focuses on:
- increasing self awareness
- examining thoughts and feelings
- becoming more resilient
- being adaptable
Start Today
Schedule your FREE 15 Minute Phone Consultation by contacting me at 954-947-0774 or info@treeoflifefl.com to see if we’re a good match and if therapy is right for you.