One of the hallmarks of teenage behavior is the drive to define their identity apart from adult/parental influence. So while teens are mature enough to talk directly about their problems, it is still useful to approach therapy differently than one would with adults.
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Adults come to counseling for advice about what to do with their problems, but because teens are working hard at forging their own paths, it is often hard for them to accept advice from adults. In fact many teens have a strong distrust of adults, believing that adults can not understand them and can not help them. Thus my first goal in counseling teens is to work to show them that I respect them and with their help can come to understand them. Without a foundation of trust between client and counselor, there is little good that can come out of counseling. Once the teen feels comfortable with me, we can move onto working on the things that brought them into counseling. A large goal in therapy with adults is discovering the roots of the problems that the adult is facing and addressing those core problems. This approach does not work well with teens. They are in a stage of life that is forward focused. They are trying to figure out who they are going to become. Therefore, it is most helpful for therapy with teens to be forward focused as well. I try to help teens define goals for themselves and coach them as they work towards achieving those goals. The goals that teens develop for themselves are often different from the goals that the parents had in mind when they brought the teen in for counseling. However, the teen’s goals can usually be worked with in such a way as to accomplish the parent’s goals as well.
Often teens come into counseling because their parents are making them come. The parents are often much more motivated about what they want to see happen in counseling than the teen is. Therefore it is important that parents are involved with and informed about what is happening in counseling. When the teen is a minor, parents have legal rights to know details about what is going on in counseling. In many cases, however, the teen’s therapy is greatly benefited if they are allowed to have a level of confidentiality. When this is the case, I suggest that parents agree to let me give general information from the session instead of reporting the details of what is said in therapy. (There are important exceptions to this. I will tell parents details if a teen reports that they have had thoughts of or have engaged in: illegal activities, harming themselves, or harming others.) At the beginning of the first session I discuss with the parents the particulars of how to handle confidentiality for their teen.
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