Teenage Therapy

Being a teenager is a busy, exciting and often stressful time, for both teenagers and their families. There is a lot of neurobiological change happening in their brains and their bodies alongside the pressure of navigating school, exams and relationships.

Given all the changes that they are experiencing it is no wonder that many adolescents may struggle with anxiety and low mood at this stage in their lives.

My Approach

I can help teenagers to recognise and articulate their emotions and communicate more effectively with the adults in their lives.  I strive to validate their feelings through or counselling and help them develop healthy and positive ways of channelling their emotions. This leads them towards a better understanding of themselves, their relationships and their established patterns of behaviour.

Working with young people is different to working with adults so in addition to my core qualifications I studied the CPCAB Level 5 Diploma in working with Children & Young people.

How I Work

The first step is to make contact, usually this is by the parent but if the young person contacts me directly I will always ask a parent to accompany the initial meeting unless they are over 18 or they make the decision not to. There will be a registration form to sign along with an agreement for. All of my work is strictly confidential, but I do offer a review after 6 sessions with a parent but during this I am unable to disclose any of my conversations with your child.

 

Step 1 – Initial Enquiry

Parent/young person contacts me via the enquiry form.

Step 2 – Information Sharing

There is an email information sharing exchange between therapist and parent/client to assess suitability for step 3. 

Step 3 – Parent and Young person Consultation (face-to-face or online via Zoom)

If the parent is seeking help for their young person, I may find it is most beneficial to have a session with the parent first.  This is to explore the issues the young person is facing from the parent’s perspective, before I meet the young person for an assessment session.

Step 4 – Young Person Assessment Session (face-to-face or online via Zoom)

This session will explore the young person’s issues in more depth and their psychological readiness for therapy, as well as making sure they are happy to work with me.  Therapist, parent and young person agree if they are ready for step 5.

Step 5 – Contracting

I then offer the young person a weekly therapy session usually for six weeks, but we can discuss this.  These sessions are either 30 minutes or 45 minutes, I will talk to the parent and the young person when we meet to agree what session length will work best for them as some young people find a longer session too much and some it works very well for. 

Step 6 – Review after 6 weeks to discuss contract ending or whether we renew.

This is with parent and young person (separately or together) to agree how we move forward.

 

Please contact me for more information on my services.

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