Rebecca Wurzburger, PSYD

Adolescents in Therapy

Adolescence can be a particularly difficult time, during which young people move from childhood to adulthood. The transition brings physical, social, and emotional changes, and even when life is relatively stress free, it can be a challenging experience. In addition, the adolescent brain is still developing. Therefore, teens don’t have the emotional or cognitive ability to easily identify and verbalize what is going on inside of them, often leading them to act out their feelings instead. When adolescents experience trauma or increased stress such as parental or family discord, bullying or social difficulties, peer pressure, a death or illness in the family, or other major life stressors, they may show their feelings of fear, sadness, and anger by changing their behavior, usually negatively.

Therapy can be an opportunity for adolescents to process their thoughts and feelings in a safe place so that they can learn more effective ways of interacting with their environment and develop a good set of coping skills. It’s also an opportunity for them to explore and bring together their ideas about their own identity, as this is an important task at this stage of their development.