Teen Therapy in Westchester, New York
Therapy for Teens and Pre-teens
Has your teenager been saying they are feeling down or unmotivated? Maybe you see that they are not doing as well in school as they used to be? Is your teenager sleeping all the time or not at all? Maybe you have noticed changes in their appetite? Everytime you ask they say that nothing is wrong, but you know there is more to that story.
Is your teenager saying that they feel anxious? Maybe they are nervous about school or even situations that have arisen with their peers? Is your teen suddenly not getting along with everyone in your family?
Maybe you have noticed they are engaging in self-destructive behaviors, or using substances? Are you concerned that they might have engaged in self-harm behavior? Has your teen eluded to their life not being worth living?
As a parent or caretaker of a teen or pre-teen, you want to make sure they have all the support that they need physically and emotionally. Their emotional needs might be harder to sort out, and that is where therapy comes into play. Working with a Teen Therapist in Westchester is another adult who your teenager can confide in, to make sure they are staying safe and making sound decisions.
Our Approach To Therapy For Teens
There is so much to deal with when you are going through your teenage years. From friendships, to school, to getting along with parents, to puberty! You can then magnify that with all the pressure you might feel to be successful, then throw in social media and peer pressure.
Teen therapy can be a useful tool and outlet. We are not one size fits all. The biggest thing about finding the right teen therapist is someone that you can really talk to, without feeling like you are holding anything back. We will take time to build that relationship to make your teen feel comfortable to open up.
Aside from having an outlet, we want to make sure that your teen leaves their session with the tools they need for the real world. We may incorporate Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Dialectical Behavioral Therapy throughout our sessions. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy can help us further explore things like self-esteem and anxiety. It can help get to the root cause that has to do with our beliefs about ourselves. DBT, or Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, can really allow teens to build their toolboxes of skills. Dialectical Behavioral Therapy covers 4 main topic areas including Mindfulness, Emotion Regulation, Distress Tolerance and Interpersonal Effectiveness. You can read more about DBT here.
Although your teen does not need any diagnosis to attend therapy, here are the areas of mental health that we are comfortable working with. If there is something that you don’t see below, please do not hesitate to give us a call to discuss.
Stress
School issues
Parent conflict
Trauma and PTSD
Grief
Self-esteem and self-worth
Bullying
Mood Disorders
Adjustments and life transitions
We are happy to set up a consultation with you to see if we are the right fit for your teen. It is so important for both the client and parent or caregiver to feel comfortable with the relationship with your Teen Therapist in Westchester.
Family Involvement in Teen Therapy
We often get asked about parent involvement in therapy. We will talk openly with a caregiver and teen during the first session to go over confidentiality. If you are ever a danger to yourself or anyone else in any way, we will have a conversation together with your parents or caregiver to make sure you can remain safe outside of session. Otherwise, what is talked about in session stays between us. If there are things that you want to discuss with your parents, we can help facilitate that in a family session.
We do like to schedule family sessions when appropriate to talk about overall progress and skills being worked on. This is so that family members can best support the person in therapy. We are also happy to schedule time to meet with parents without the teen if that is what everyone agrees to be best.
Occasionally we might recommend that parents or caregivers work with their own therapist. This could be to address issues that have come up in Family Therapy sessions or anything else the caregiver might need to address. Because we are a group practice, you can see another clinician within our practice which allows both Therapists to work closely together and provide the best care possible.
FAQs
-
Absolutely. It is ok to not know exactly what is going on with your teenager. We are here to help you figure it out so you can best support them in therapy and in their life.
-
This depends on the person. We really take an individualized approach, but we are happy to have that discussion and check in throughout the course of therapy. We usually start off with weekly sessions, then as progress is made and symptoms are better managed we switch to bi-weekly and eventually as needed. Ultimately we want your Teen to have the skills they need to use outside of session.
-
That’s ok! We are here to help. The most important part of therapy is building rapport and trust. We take time to work through whatever comes up at the beginning of therapy. Sometimes it takes a little time to build a relationship and that’s ok, we are still weaving important skills into sessions whenever we can, and more often than not, teens will start to share pretty soon on.
-
If your teen is self-harming we will come up with a safety plan, and we will discuss the safety plan all together. We want to make sure that your teen is safe outside of therapy.