The teenage years can be a tricky stage of life for both adolescents and their parents. At Nala our psychologists are experienced in working with teens and parents together to foster connection and understanding. This means we can understand your adolescent’s behaviour and presenting concerns within the context of their developmental stage, relationships and environment. Our clinicians create a safe space for our teens to open up and share, so that a tailored approach can be found for healing and growth, while respecting the individual needs of the client.
Challenges Include:
- Coping with stress
- Anxiety
- Depression
- Mood disorders
- Body image
- School-refusal
- Study problems
- Bullying/emotional abuse/discrimination
- Self-harm
- Suicidal ideation
- Attention difficulties
- Disordered eating
- Addiction
- Risk-taking
- Chronic health
- Grief and loss
- PTSD and complex trauma
- Family conflict
As well as a variety of other mental health presentations.
What To Expect
Consultations are 50 minutes long. The initial appointment can be tailored for both you and your teen to have time together or separately with your psychologist. It is important that a parent attends the first session to discuss any questions about the structure of therapy, set goals and create a treatment plan. Your psychologist will discuss any recommendations with you during the first few sessions and give you guidelines on the frequency of appointments to achieve the most effective and efficient outcomes for your teen.
Medicare allows a rebate to be claimed for two parent-only sessions per calendar year under your child’s Mental Health Care Plan. Please be aware that this will use two of the ten sessions your child is entitled to rebates on for the year.
Parents
Evidence shows that in most cases with teens living at home, therapy is most successful if a combination of individual work and parenting work is undertaken. This ensures a collaborative and meaningful approach to change. Your clinician will guide you as therapy progresses as to when teen work or parenting work is needed. Your teen’s relationship with their clinician will remain the priority to foster the trust in that therapeutic relationship, so in some cases a different clinician may be involved for parenting work.