Adolescent Therapy

John has extensive experience working with adolescents over the years. He contracts with residential programs, Social Services, providing therapy and consultation in foster homes, and provides trainings to parents to enhance parenting skills and effectiveness.

Working with adolescents is rewarding to John. He often describes the various “intense” transitions individuals and family systems go through during this time. First becoming a teenager presents with excitement and changes for both the children and for the adults. Adjustments are the key to the smoothest transitions possible. Middle adolescents presents unique challenges as bodies change,  new interests emerge, social dynamics challenge old and new friendships, and some awareness of the future may bring degrees of anxiety. Later adolescents (and some sociologists say this may go into the twenties these days) brings struggles of not being a child, not being an adult, not wanting to be a child, not always wanting to be treated as a young adult. These challenges affect the adolescent and the other family members in varying degrees. John often encourages the “ecology” of the adolescent; that is, other members of the family and/or social network, to participate in the process of therapy.