4 Reasons to Seek Teen Counseling

If you have wondered about counseling for yourself or a friend or loved one, be encouraged. Teen counseling doesn’t carry with it the stigma that it once did.

Teen counseling is for anyone from ages 13-19 who is seeking help. A professional counselor can help teens through a variety of issues. Teens go to counselors for anything from shifts in mood and behavioral issues to unhealthy thought patterns, depression, or substance abuse.

Teen counseling isn’t just for teen-specific struggles. Your teenager may be in a period of transition. Perhaps he or she is new to a blended family, is struggling to deal with a parent’s death or divorce, has a troubled friend or experienced some kind of trauma, or has any reason that may benefit from talking to a professional counselor to process his or her thoughts and emotions.

What is teen counseling?

Teen counseling, in its simplest form, helps a teen work through problems with the help of someone who is trained to ask helpful questions, listen well, and sometimes, teach teens new ways of thinking or looking at their situation that can help them move forward.

Types of teen counseling.

Teens can see a counselor for a variety of reasons. Some specialists can treat teens in areas specific to their needs. These counselors include licensed marriage and family counselors, substance abuse therapists, clinical social workers, educational psychologists, and therapists who specialize in issues such as depression, anxiety, or eating disorders.

What to expect from teen therapy.

When you or your teen goes to counseling, there is often an intake appointment where the counselor gets information about the teen, the family history, and any concerns. A counselor will likely ask what brought you to counseling or what your goals are. It’s okay if you don’t know exactly what is going on, but your counselor will try to identify that as you continue in therapy.

Your counselor may ask for a meeting with your parent first, or he or she may request that a parent attends with you for a few minutes at the beginning of the session. Or you may request that your parent not attend for a while. Your counselor will let you know upfront all the options for your time together.

Second, a counselor may just ask about you. He or she isn’t just interested in an issue or a problem. A good counselor is also interested in getting to know you as a person. That’s why he or she may ask about your interests, friends, family, and school.

Third, counselors want to know what your medical background is. This may come from forms that are completed by a parent or caregiver. It helps a counselor to understand your medical history so that he or she can make sure your counseling is effective and helpful.

Most importantly, counselors know that their job is to listen well. When a counselor asks a question, it is often to help you realize how you are feeling, recognize a pattern of behavior that isn’t helpful, or understand how an event impacted you. Counselors can also listen to you discuss how relationships have made you feel, what aspects of them have been helpful, and which of them have been hurtful.

As you talk, your counselor will take notes during the session. These notes are 100% confidential, and licensed, professional counselors will not include the process notes in your medical file to ensure these are confidential and not accessible to others.

How to know if you need teen counseling.

These are four of the reasons among the many when we recommend a teen seek the trusted help of a licensed counselor.

1. Anxious thoughts or expectations. 

If your teen struggles with anxiety, or just worries about the future in a way that interferes with her everyday joy, it may be time to seek professional help. Whether it’s fear of not getting into a good college, trouble with public speaking, or being afraid of trying new things or that something bad will happen, anxiety of any degree can be crippling and steal a person’s enjoyment in life.

A counselor who is trained in helping teens through anxiety can help teens learn new ways of framing their expectations. For example, if your teen tends to expect the worse, a counselor may be able to walk him or her through the “worst-case scenario” to find that even difficult things are possible to overcome.

2. Low self-esteem.

Most teens’ self-esteem fluctuates from time to time. New situations may cause a teen to lack confidence in a certain area. Experiencing an occasional day here and there where a teen struggles to see his or her self-worth is somewhat normal. However, if your teen regularly feels ashamed, lacks confidence in any area, doubts herself or himself most of the time, and/or is self-critical, it’s time to seek teen counseling.

Self-esteem is how you view your self-worth or value. While it does increase or decrease occasionally, even as adults, a person’s childhood shapes his or her baseline belief about himself or herself going forward.

Your teen’s experiences in family relationships, friendships, bullying, at school, or in trying new things may contribute to his or her self-perception. A counselor can help your teen explore how she feels about herself and how she is coping with those feelings. Often, a teen will not know exactly what’s wrong, but he may struggle with addictive behaviors, depression, feeling alone, sad, or angry.

These issues may be rooted in low self-esteem, which can be overcome through counseling and therapy.

3. Transition or coping issues.

If a teen is going through a life change or has had a recent difficult loss or diagnosis, it may be helpful to find a counselor who can walk them through the new season of life.

Even something like going from elementary school to middle school can be a reason to seek the help of a professional, licensed counselor. Some teens need guidance to talk through how they are feeling, the new situations they’re being exposed to, or the loss of a friendship that can occur when switching schools.

If your teen has a new diagnosis of a chronic health condition or has lost a close friend, these would be definite reasons to talk to a counselor. The counselor’s role can be to help your teen discuss what impact the condition and/or loss of a friend has had on other areas of your teen’s life. Some teens even struggle with feelings of shame or guilt when they know a diagnosis influences their family life, even though it’s not their fault.

Talking through some of the ramifications of a loss or diagnosis can help your teen learn new skills, how to reframe thoughts, and have reasonable expectations.

4. Trauma.

Your teen will benefit from counseling if he or she has gone through any kind of trauma. Trauma can be defined as an emotional response that sticks with someone after the person has lived through a stressful or life-changing event.

Parents sometimes think of trauma as only relating to abuse of some kind. But trauma can be a result of many other experiences. Trauma isn’t the event itself; it’s the lingering emotions and thoughts related to the event that prevent a person from moving forward, from seeing the world around them accurately, or from recovering from difficult experiences in the future.

A counselor can help a teen who has encountered a challenging life event and still struggles to see it through a healthy lens. He or she may feel at fault or guilty for the event happening to him or her. A person may also build unhealthy coping mechanisms due to not wanting to deal with the emotions surrounding something traumatic.

Traumatic events can be related to assault or abuse, but they can also be related to being bullied, being betrayed by a friend, or having parents who go through a difficult experience or divorce. Every teen responds differently to trauma, and a counselor can help teens process how they are feeling so that, in the future, they learn resilience.

If you or someone you love is experiencing emotions that he or she may benefit from talking about, teen counseling is a great first step. Our offices have counselors who practice a variety of specialties, and we can help you find the counselor that will be a good fit for your teen and his or her situation.

Contact our office today to take that first step.