What to Expect from Teen and Family Counseling

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What to Expect from Teen and Family Counseling
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• If your family is considering initiating
  counseling for your teen, it might be that the
  level of distress or conflict in the home is
  high. As a parent, you do your best to provide
  everything you can for your children and still,
  they may struggle, or your relationship with one
  another feels challenging or distant.

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• It takes incredible courage to reach out for
  support when, in spite of your best intentions,
  you are seeing your teen struggle. It can be
  helpful to know what to expect from counseling
  and ease any worries or fears about the
  experience.

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• First, you can begin by looking through our
  About Us page and seeing if there is a
  therapist whose profile page you resonate with.
  If you arent sure who might be a good fit, our
  Intake staff can thoughtfully match you with one
  of our trained and experienced therapists. The
  initial session will be between the therapist and
  parents.

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• This is an important conversation to gather
  historical information around development,
  behavior, life stressors or transitions, and
  relational dynamics. It also gives you the
  opportunity to create a connection with your
  teens therapist, and collaborate on how therapy
  will be structured and how you share important
  information with one another.

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• The next few sessions will be with your teen and
  the therapist. This gives your teen and the
  therapist time to create mutual trust get to know
  one another. It also allows time for your
  therapist to understand your teens struggle and
  how these might be playing out in their behavior
  or in their relationships.

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• As counseling continues, sessions are structured
  to best meet the needs of you and your teen.
  Sessions may be with parents/caregivers
  individually, individual sessions with teens, the
  entire family, or with one parent and the teen.
  Structuring services to be responsive to the
  needs of each unique family allows us to focus on
  the multiple relationships between parents,
  siblings, and the family. 

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• It offers the opportunity to explore challenges,
  heal and strengthen connection, and create change
  together. At CCHC our goal is for each family
  member to feel seen, heard and understood.
• Our evidence-based approach supports mutual
  understanding and growth, refraining from any
  finger-pointing at what parents should be doing
  or condemning a teen for their current behaviors.

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• Below is a list of the benefits of investing in
  teen and family therapy with CCHC.
• New and improved map for communicating 
• Our therapists can support you and your teen in
  identifying what is not working in your current
  communication pattern. This allows for the
  co-creation of new and more effective ways of
  communicating with one another.

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• Mutual understanding
• Parents and teens can often feel as though they
  are living on different planets. Your priorities,
  needs, roles, and responsibilities are different.
  We will support you and your teen in
  understanding one another from a place of
  kindness, structure, and empathyeven if you do
  not agree. 

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• New problem-solving skills 
• With improved communication and a better
  understanding of one anothers perspective,
  moving through struggles together often starts to
  occur organically. However, if it does not, our
  therapists can support you and your teen in
  finding ways to address specific challenges and
  proactively problem-solve.

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• Healthy balance of structure and nurture 
• As your teens distress or symptoms have
  decreased and the family is feeling more
  connected, many families experience a better
  balance of quality time and enjoyment of each
  other alongside clearer expectations and
  adherence to boundaries or limits.

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• Difficult conversations deeper bonds 
• At times, hearing a teens pain can ignite many
  feelings about who we are as parents. Our
  therapists are skilled in supporting your family
  in hearing one another in a manner that does not
  create more pain or disconnection. 

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• We also offer support to process what is shared
  with each other.  This creates an opportunity for
  healing old wounds and for your family resilience
  to flourish.  The therapeutic work you and your
  teen invest in can create sustainable change in
  your relationship lasting a lifetime.