About Teens Issues

 

We know that all teens are in a critical stage of human development. The teen years bring with them existential issues, self-worth issues, problems of comparison, boundary issues, body image issues, identity crises, and parental relationship strain. The reason for this is that teens are experiencing rapid changes to their brain and body. Discovering their place in the world around them involves navigating new social relationships, changes in their body, and growing their autonomy.

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For some teens, sharing these issues with their friends or family seems impossible and they are left with few to no outlets. If they do happen to share with their friends, they receive questionable guidance and if they share with their parents, they likely aren’t revealing the whole story. Due to this, issues can grow and become more problematic over time.

 

Signs that your teen might need counseling are withdrawal from friends and family, particularly when going through a tough time, lack of energy or motivation, shutting down during conversations, significant and abrupt drops in grades or performance at school, acting out, frequent crying, excessive secrecy or lying, etc. These are a just a few signs that could indicate a need for counseling, but situations and guidance will vary from teen to teen.

 

Our Approach to Teens

 

One of the most important considerations for counseling with teens is that sometimes the last place they want to be is in a counseling office and, at the least, they are willing to give it a try at their parent’s recommendation. This means that the beginning of counseling, the primary goal is to build a collaborative relationship. This allows for your teen to feel comfortable and realize that they can benefit from the counseling process.

 

Making sure this is at the beginning of therapy is incredibly important because it is really hard to make progress when you don’t feel like there is progress that can be made. We put our expertise to work at making sure our teen clients feel comfortable, that their therapist is the right fit, and counseling will be helpful.

 

Along with developing a therapeutic relationship, we walk teen through understanding and dealing with emotions in a healthy way, creating appropriate boundaries, changing negative thought patterns, developing critical relationships, and healing in deep hurts. Counseling at this point resembles adult individual therapy very closely.

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Trust and Teens

 

One of the most important components of any productive therapeutic relationship is trust. Without it, therapy cannot progress. Due to this, we believe that information that teen clients share with their therapists should remain confidential unless any life-threatening information or extenuating circumstances arise. While parents have the right to request information that arises in the therapy session, an overuse of this right will likely result in a loss of trust between the therapist and client and consequently wasted time and money. Regardless, this is something that will always be discussed at the beginning of therapy and agreed upon between parents/guardians, the client, and the therapist.

 

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About Online Counseling

 

Due to counseling at Revive being online, it is important to establish the legitimacy and appropriateness of online counseling for each of our clients. First, we use a HIPAA compliant platform to conduct all of our sessions. This means that your information is entirely confidential and protected. Our job is to make sure that you feel safe and that all sessions and personal information is confidential. One of the ways that we do this is by using a HIPAA compliant tele-health platform as well as a HIPAA compliant scheduling software.

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Second, establishing a connection with your therapist is important to us and more than possible through online teen counseling. If we did not believe that you could establish a relationship with your therapist or make strides towards your goals, we would not participate in online counseling. We are committed to making sure you feel that you are making progress and have a working professional relationship with your therapist. If you decide to participate in online counseling, you and your counselor will work together to establish goals to make sure you are moving forward and making progress. In addition, just as with face to face counseling, you will have time to build a professional relationship and feel comfortable talking with your counselor.

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Third, due to the nature of online teen counseling all clients need to have a reliable internet connection and private place to meet virtually with their therapist. This is essential to get the most out of online counseling. If you need help with setting that up, then you can speak with your counselor to get a few tips on how to make this possible.

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Finally, please send us an email if you have any questions regarding our online teen counseling service. We want to make sure all of our clients find the right fit for them. If online counseling is not a right fit, then we are happy to make referrals. If online counseling is a good fit, then feel free to schedule an appointment online.

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