Wednesday 16 January 2013

Important Factors To Consider In Teen Counseling

By Shanna McNeil


Teen counseling is an important part of parenting skills which is helpful in shaping youths in becoming responsible adults. It is very necessary to pay attention to the teenager in question is the counseling sessions. Reflect on his everything he says and hold back your words of wisdom for a while. Listening and internalizing helps the therapist to understand the problem.

It is not advisable to judge the teenager during the sessions. Teenagers can sometimes be very sensitive to your actions so as to establish whether you are judgmental or not. This can prove to be sabotaging to the entire process because he may choose to hide vital information which could have been part of the solution.

It is necessary to avoid in over identifying. A danger looms when you as the counselor try so hard to match your own experiences to that of the teenager in the attempt to gain credibility. That is a mistake which is commonly made by counselors. Even if you truly have one such experience, try and avoid telling the whole story. Giving a sneak preview of the story is allowed just to give the youth the feeling that he could not be the only one going through or has gone through the situation.

Danger and drama will have to be clearly differentiated. Younger teenagers usually tend to be dramatic and that can distort the information being relayed. So as to avoid taking chances, you will be required to treat every situation with the seriousness it deserves. When you notice more drama in the youth during his narration, you can as well as ignore them and concentrate on the core of the matter.

In many occasions, the youths are characterized by stream thinking, sometimes called black and white thinking. In times of problems, they normally tend to go to the extreme thinking that they are in the worst situation ever. This kind of thoughts can be neutralized by questions that tend to drift them to a middle ground.

Probe him and try to establish if he does see things differently. Find out if he could be nursing other wishful thoughts or if he there exists a time in his life when he encountered such a problem and it seemed different. These questions will help ease the inbuilt pressure and reduce the drama and stream thinking.

Secondary gain consideration is very fundamental. This refers to returns for everything that the counselor does. The counselor should try and figure out what the teenager is gaining from the crisis. Some of the gains could include attention, off from duty, school or stuff and the closeness of the counselor. This helps to reduce the stress and the tension that piled up on the youth.

As a therapist, activate the family system during teen counseling. The family should not be kept in the dark about the issue affecting one of their own. The family always wants to help out where possible. Even though some situations may be unnecessary to tell the family about, you should never promise confidentiality to the teen because it might be very necessary to call in a third party who will have to help out.




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