
Services
Adolescent Therapy & Counselling
I specialise in providing therapy and counselling to Adolescents.
I primarily see adolescents with a variety of psychological challenges like Anxiety, Depression, low mood, self-harm, ADHD, stress, emotional regulation problems, difficulties in relationships or just trying to figure out how to navigate during the sometimes emotionally difficult teenage years.
The Therapy & Counselling Process
The initial session(s) are focused on getting a good understanding of you and your adolescent's overall life situation, making an assessment, and talking about goals for the therapy process. Beforehand, I will send you an assessment form. One for you as parents and one for your adolescent to fill out. The purpose of this is to speed up the initial assessment.
Some of the developmental tasks for adolescents are to develop their identity and to become more independent from their parents, but at the same time, parents are still of pivotal importance for them and their mental well-being. This will be reflected in my practice. At the initial session, both you and your adolescent are invited to meet and talk with me. At the start of the session, we will have had an initial conversation and I will get your perspective as parents. Then I will have some time just with your adolescent to get their perspective. The session will end with a mutual talk, and I will share my thoughts on what I can help with and we will agree where to go from here. Of course, there can be situations, where you as parents prefer to have an initial session just with me, and that’s fine too.
For the following sessions with your adolescent it's helpful if you, the parents are there for the last 10 minutes of the session. This is to provide you an update (as agreed with your adolescent) and also to share if there are things that are important for you to know. This is to create a therapy process that is not only individual but also connected to your adolescent’s family life
Parental support
Parenting is critically important, and it's a 24/7 job. When your child enters adolescence it can sometimes be confusing, turbulent, and exhausting as a parent. The strategies that you used previously may not be working anymore, or you feel your relationship to your adolescent has gone down a path where there is a lack of communication and/or only negative contact.
It can be that you as a parent need some sessions where we discuss and develop different strategies and resources. Getting some new strategies in your parenting toolbox can make all the difference to how your family manages challenging times like the teenage years.
It can also be that you and your adolescent need some sessions together to re-establish communication and your relationship in a way that is adjusted to the new developmental period that your child has entered.