ADOLESCENTS
An increasing number of adolescents are developing depression and anxiety. Unfortunately, many adolescents go through life feeling unseen, unheard, and invalidated. Our therapists are here to meet all clients where they are and clients feel seen, heard, and validated. If an adolescent experiences something upsetting or traumatic the adolescent may experience a mental health crisis and experience suicidal thoughts. If this happens we encourage all parents to take these thoughts seriously and get your adolescent into mental health treatment. Our therapists can teach our clients emotion regulation and coping skills so that our clients can better handle upsetting or traumatic events in the future.
Many times parents will call a therapist because their adolescent child is acting defiant, isolating themselves, sleeping all the time, skipping school, or their academic performance is decreasing. Our therapists can help the adolescent and their parents figure out why the adolescent’s behavior is changing and teach the parents how to understand their child’s perspective and experiences and help them develop new communication skills.
Most of the time the parents do not need to be present for therapy with their adolescent. Adolescent clients need the space and freedom to talk about whatever they want to talk about in therapy without their parents being told the content of these sessions. Legally adolescent clients do not have the right to privacy and confidentiality in therapy. That is why we ask that all parents sign a document granting the therapist autonomy in determining what, if any, information the parents should be told regarding their child’s treatment. IN ALL CASES parents will be informed if the minor client is engaging in self-harm, drug use, experiencing suicidal ideations or has attempted suicide, or has any intention to cause harm to others. Parents will also be notified of sexual activity if the minor is below the age of consent in the state in which the client resides. Parents WILL NOT be told content of their minor child’s therapy sessions unless that content meets one of the aforementioned criteria. The therapeutic relationship has repeatedly been proven to be more important than any specific therapeutic techniques. The therapeutic relationship will not be effective if the minor client is unable to speak freely.
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