Therapy For Teenagers in California & Florida
Helping Parents Raise Confident, Healthy Future Adults Through Therapy For Teenagers in California & Florida
Raising a teenager is tough. Here are some common reasons we see people coming to us to help them support their teenager:
Do you notice your teenager having difficulties with peer relationships?
Are you concerned about your teenager's academic performance and the pressure they may be facing in school?
Are you worried about depression, anxiety, or other mental health issues in your teenager?
Do you struggle to communicate with your teenager, experiencing frequent conflicts and feelings of disconnect?
If so, you’re not alone. We’re here to support both of you during this difficult phase of life.
Adolescence is a difficult time for parents and teenagers alike.
Therapy for teenagers can help.
There’s tension between teens’ desire for autonomy and independence, need for support and guidance, and parents’ concern for their wellbeing and safety. This tension can lead to conflict, withdrawal, confusion, anger, and desperation for something to change for both you and your child.
We’re in the midst of a teen mental health crisis brought on by the isolation of the pandemic, rising rates of anxiety and depression due to social and academic pressure, constant inundation of information on social media, bullying, and relentless media attention given to gun violence, climate change, and youth suicides that creates emotional contagion and disregulation.
Benefits of Therapy For Teenagers
A good teen therapist can help support your teen through this difficult developmental phase and demystify this stage for you so it doesn’t feel fraught with fear or frustration. We can help lower your teen’s anxiety and yours so you both feel calmer and more connected.
Parenting is hard.
Finding a teen therapist shouldn’t be.
Common Conflict Spots Between Teenagers And Parents And How Therapy For Teenagers Can Help
Teen Struggle: Identity development
Feeling uncertain about their identity, sexuality, gender, or future goals.
Parent Stressor:
Feeling anxious and uncertain about their teen's journey of self-discovery, grappling with how best to support their child's exploration of identity, sexuality, and future aspirations while keeping them safe.
How Teen Therapy Helps:
Therapy provides a supportive environment for teens to explore and understand their identity, values, and aspirations, while also offering guidance and resources for parents to navigate discussions around identity, safety and unconditional support.
Teen Struggle: Stress and anxiety
Feeling overwhelmed by schoolwork, extracurricular activities, or other responsibilities.
Parent Stressor:
Feeling torn between wanting to alleviate their teen's stress and acknowledging their own limitations in providing relief. Feelings of helplessness and inadequacy.
How Teen Therapy Helps:
Therapy teaches teens coping mechanisms, relaxation techniques, and time-management skills to manage stress effectively, while also offering parents education and support in creating a nurturing and stress-reducing home environment.
Teen Struggle: Lack of control
Feeling like they have little control over their own lives or decisions. Much of the time, this feeling is based in some reality. Teens have little control!
Parent Stressor:
Grappling with feelings of powerlessness and anxiety when they feel like their teen's life is spinning out of control. Questioning their own parenting decisions and abilities to guide their child toward a stable and successful future.
How Teen Therapy Helps:
Therapy empowers teens to make informed decisions and set boundaries, while also supporting parents in relinquishing some reasonable control to foster healthy independence in their teen.
Therapy for Teenagers In Our LGBTQ+ Community
We have experience providing therapy for trans and nonbinary teens and helping support parents with that particular path of identity development and transition. It can be difficult and heartbreaking to let go of your ideas about who your child is and will be, which can create conflict with your teen who feels you are dismissing their newfound identity. You may wonder if it’s a phase or fear for their safety. We can guide both of you through those feelings and questions and help you feel reconnected with your unique and self-assured teen.
Here's what we ask from parents to support your teen's therapy:
Willingness to have regular 15 minute consultation calls with your teenager's therapist
Willingness and ability to have one or more paid individual collateral sessions per month with your teenager's therapist to explore your concerns, parenting questions, and how to best support your teen
Willingness to participate in conjoint sessions with your teen if your teen's therapist believes it would be helpful and your teen agrees to it
You don’t need one more place to drive your teen every week.
Luckily, research shows that teletherapy is just as effective as in person therapy for most teens.
Therapy is one of the greatest gifts you can give your teenager.
Therapy for teenagers provides guidance and space to…
Learn coping skills
Build confidence
Improve emotional regulation
Learn distress tolerance
Increase interpersonal effectiveness
… before your teen develops ingrained, unhealthy, and destructive coping habits. This will change the rest of their life in a monumental way.
OUR THERAPISTS WHO SPECIALIZE IN THERAPY FOR TEENAGERS
Our teen therapists have many years of experience working in high-stakes environments, counseling teens whose families are at risk of separation due to significant, chronic safety concerns. While this isn’t likely the case for you and your teen, you can take comfort in knowing our therapists have seen it all and aren’t afraid to get in and do the hard and messy work with your child.
Coriann Papazian, LMFT
Alexis Bibler, AMFT
Causes of Anxiety In Teenagers
Anxiety is a normal human response. A life without any anxiety isn’t a practical goal. Teenagers often struggling with a lack of autonomy in decision-making while also facing some real world challenges. This in-between space, where they're expected to make some big decisions but have limited control, can be a breeding ground for anxiety. From worries about fitting in to managing school pressures and planning for the future, anxiety manifests in various forms, such as generalized anxiety disorder, social anxiety, panic disorder, or specific phobias.
Teenage anxiety isn't just an individual struggle—it's influenced by various societal factors too. From the pressures of social media and cyberbullying to climate change anxiety and the uncertainties of global politics, today's teens face a unique set of challenges. And let's not forget the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, disrupting their lives and social-emotional development.
Teenage Anxiety: How Therapy For Teenagers Can Help
Adolescence can be a wild journey for everyone involved—teens, siblings, parents, and educators alike. Anxiety often becomes a prominent companion along the journey. We're here to offer practical guidance to help both teens and their loved ones understand and manage this anxiety.
Spotting Signs of Anxiety in Your Teenager
Keep an eye out for signs like excessive worry, irritability, physical symptoms like stomachaches or muscle tension, and behavioral changes such as avoidance or procrastination. Anxiety can stem from a multitude of factors—biological, environmental, and cognitive—and it's important to understand your teen's experience
Managing Teenage Anxiety
There are many strategies to help manage and alleviate teenage anxiety. Start by fostering open conversations about feelings and fears, encouraging healthy habits, and exploring mindfulness and relaxation techniques. But these often aren’t quite enough, or you’ll face some resistance when you suggest anxiety management strategies. Seeking therapy for teenagers can provide concrete tools and support in managing anxiety effectively.
Creating a supportive environment for anxious teens is harder than it sounds. Approach conversations with gentle curiosity, lead by example, and encourage healthy coping mechanisms. And when needed, don't hesitate to seek therapy for teenagers.
Accessing quality therapy for teenagers can be challenging. That's where teletherapy comes in—a convenient and accessible solution, offering teenagers the support they need from the comfort of their own homes.
More Conflict Spots Between Teenagers And Parents And How Therapy For Teenagers Can Help
Teen Struggle:
Conflict with parents. Feeling frustrated by disagreements or clashes with parents over rules, boundaries, or lifestyle choices.
Parent Stressor:
Parents grappling with feelings of inadequacy or failure when faced with ongoing clashes or disagreements with their teen, questioning their ability to maintain a harmonious family dynamic.
How Teen Therapy Helps:
Therapy facilitates constructive dialogue and conflict resolution, empowering both teens and parents to handle disagreements more effectively and strengthen their relationship.
Teen Struggle:
Peer issues.
Dealing with friendship drama, bullying, or feeling isolated from their peers. Struggling to make and keep friends.
Parent Stressor:
Feeling powerless and distressed when their teen experiences friendship problems or bullying, struggling to provide effective support and guidance while witnessing their child's emotional turmoil.
How Teen Therapy Helps:
Therapy helps teens develop coping strategies, assertiveness skills, and healthy relationship boundaries, while also equipping parents with tools to provide emotional support and intervene when necessary.
Teen Struggle:
Self-esteem issues. Struggling with self-confidence and negative self-image, especially in comparison to peers on social media.
Parent Stressor:
Heartache and concern seeing their teen struggle with self-confidence and negative self-image. Grappling with how to bolster their child's self-worth in a world dominated by social media standards. Concern about social media overuse and negative influence.
How Teen Therapy Helps:
Therapy promotes self-awareness, self-acceptance, and resilience-building exercises, helping teens develop a positive self-image and reduce reliance on external validation. Educating teens and helping them build a healthy and safe relationship with social media.
EMDR for Teens
Growing up is tough. Teenagers go through a bunch of new challenges as they become adults. Sometimes, they don't know how to handle these problems well. EMDR therapy can really help teens. Whether they had something challenging happen, struggle with anxiety or phobias, or social anxiety, EMDR can help. Our way of doing EMDR therapy focuses on building up inner strength and faith in their own resilience. It helps them deal with their feelings and gives them tools to cope safely and healthily for life.
FAQs: Therapy For Teenagers
HOW DOES CONFIDENTIALITY WORK WITH THERAPY FOR TEENAGERS?
Quite simply, most things your teen talks about in therapy will be kept private and confidential – even from you – unless your teen’s therapist believes there is significant and imminent risk to their health and safety or the health and safety of others.
We realize this may be uncomfortable for some parents. The reason we are conservative with what we share with parents is because we know your teen is unlikely to open up and talk about what’s happening if they think their therapist is a conduit back to you. We know it’s hard to hear so little when you used to know everything about them when they were small. The heartbreak of parenting a teen is real!
The good news is that sometimes teens DO want things from therapy to be shared, and we work with them to help make that sharing as easy and smooth as possible. Other disclosures can and will be made with your teen’s permission and at the discretion of your teen’s therapist.
HOW CAN I KNOW IF THERAPY IS HELPING MY TEENAGER?
Ask your teen how they like their therapist! Research consistently demonstrates that therapy is effective when a teenager feels a good connection with their therapist.
HOW LONG DOES THERAPY FOR TEENAGERS TAKE?
Boy, do we wish we had a concrete and reliable answer to this question. Sometimes therapy is brief and specific, and sometimes therapy takes a while. The reality is that we can’t predict how long therapy will take because your child doesn’t exist in a vacuum, and various social and environmental influences on their mental health may cause disruption we can’t predict.
DOES ONLINE THERAPY REALLY WORK FOR TEENAGERS?
Absolutely! While it can be helpful if your teen is able to carry on a conversation relatively well (at least with their friends and people outside your household), our teen therapists are experienced and have techniques to help draw shy and anxious teens out of their shells and build confidence and social skills that will serve them for the rest of their lives.
Even More Conflict Spots Between Teenagers And Parents And How Therapy For Teenagers Can Help
Teen Struggle:
Feeling frustrated when adults or peers don't understand their experiences or emotions.
Parent Stressor:
Parents experiencing a sense of frustration and sorrow when their efforts to empathize and support their teen are met with resistance or perceived indifference, struggling to connect with their child on a deeper emotional level.
How Teen Therapy Helps:
Therapy provides a space for teens to explore and express their feelings, while also teaching effective communication strategies to both teens and parents.
Teen Struggle:
Pressure to perform. Feeling overwhelmed by academic or social expectations placed on them by parents, teachers, society, or themselves.
Parent Stressor:
Concern over inadvertently adding to their teen's stress, but also not wanting to soften academic or social expectations too much. Good grades are important, after all.
How Teen Therapy Helps:
Therapy helps teens manage stress, build resilience, and set realistic goals, while also assisting parents in fostering a balanced approach to achievement and providing support rather than pressure.
Teen Struggle:
Difficulty expressing themselves or communicating effectively with adults or peers. Struggling to find productive and kind language.
Parent Stressor:
Feeling unsure of how to bridge the communication gap with their teen, leading to a sense of helplessness in addressing their child's needs and concerns.
How Teen Therapy Helps:
Teen therapists offers tools and techniques for improving communication skills, helping both teens and parents learn to express themselves more effectively and understand each other's perspectives.
Other Teletherapy Services in California & Florida
Join us at Laurel Therapy Collective and discover the possibilities of teletherapy. We recognize that mental health challenges come in many forms, which is why our California therapists specialize in addressing anxiety, trauma, LGBTQ issues, couples' counseling, therapy for lawyers, and holistic therapy. We serve all of Florida and California. In particular, we work with a lot of teenagers in San Francisco, Santa Cruz, and Los Angeles. With our commitment to creating an affirming and inclusive space, promoting anti-racism, body positivity, and sex positivity, we empower you to prioritize your well-being. Remember, you deserve to find comfort, strength, and a brighter future.