Changes within the family or changed relationships hit adolescents particularly hard, Different from a adults, adolescents cannot draw on positive solutions strategies from their past. 

 

What is important when working with adolescents is to form a working alliance with the child’s parents, and act as part of a team. To achieve positive changes, the child’s environment is just as important as the work we do in therapy. Parents and family members should work on trying to understand the problem just as much as the teen in treatment in order to help lay the foundation for therapeutic success. 

 

Some Areas of Focus for Adolescents:

* Anxiety

* Depression

* Defiance

* Parental divorce or separation

* Learning challenges

* Loss

* Aggression

* Trauma

* Self Esteem

* Body Image issues

* Sexual and gender identity

* Adjustment in adoptive, foster or blended families

* Autistic spectrum and other developmental disorders

* Substance Use

* Self-harming behaviors

* Peer pressure

* Loneliness and isolation

* ADD/ADHD