9 Benefits of Therapy for Adolescents and Teens
by Ava Nesmith
Adolescence is one of the most important transitional periods in life where teens are growing, discovering their identities, facing serious challenges, making big life decisions, going through puberty, and experiencing lots of different, big emotions that may sometimes be overwhelming.
While this life transition and period of growth can be both exciting and scary, therapy can provide teens with guidance and support in order to not just survive, but also thrive during this time. Here are some of the many benefits of counseling for teens:
Emotional Regulation and Coping Skills
Because adolescence is a time where emotions can run high, therapy can help teens process these emotions with productive and healthy coping mechanisms. Therapy gives them a safe space to understand and process how they are feeling, especially when they may not want to share their feelings with their parents or friends.
This safe space is confidential (unless the teen expresses very dangerous behaviors) and nonjudgmental to ensure that teens can feel like they can be themselves and express how they are feeling without any repercussions or judgment. Therapy can help teens process all of the overwhelming emotions they may be feeling as a result of big life changes such as starting high school and college, navigating friendships and relationships, and so much more.
Teens sometimes struggle with guilt or shame over past mistakes, whether related to school, relationships, or personal decisions. Therapy provides a safe space to unpack these emotions, understand where they came from, and work towards self-forgiveness to help them move past these feelings of shame that may be holding them back.
Therapy can also help teens move towards emotional independence by teaching them to rely less on external validation from peers or family and instead develop internal sources of confidence and self-worth. This encourages teens to trust their own judgment and be more resilient in the face of criticism or rejection, which can be important for entering adulthood.
Therapy can introduce mindfulness and relaxation techniques to help teens manage stress and anxiety and develop long-term habits for remaining calm in stressful situations. Mindfulness can also improve focus and help teens become more aware of their thoughts and feelings, which could help potentially reduce impulsive behaviors.
Therapy promotes open-mindedness by encouraging teens to explore different perspectives and appreciate diversity. It helps them understand that people may have different experiences and worldviews, which fosters tolerance and empathy. This mindset can enhance their ability to navigate a multicultural world with understanding and respect. These qualities can be useful when entering job environments during adulthood.
Therapy can help teens develop better sleep routines and manage factors like anxiety and overuse of technology that can interfere with rest and mental health. Improved sleep can have a profound impact on mood, focus, and overall well-being.
Exploring Identity
Adolescence is a time where teenagers are exploring their identity, gender, sexuality, personal values, and more. Therapy can be a helpful guide during this process and can give teens a safe space to talk about this process with someone in confidence that what they say will not be shared, unless absolutely necessary. Teens may not feel comfortable sharing these experiences with their parents, so it is important that they are given an outlet that is a safe space to discuss some of these instances with someone. It can also offer a supportive and accepting environment to process these thoughts to help teens develop a positive relationship with their identity. Therapy can also provide a stepping stone for sharing difficult topics with family and friends in a way that feels approachable and less scary.
Adolescents often face significant peer pressure regarding their identity, including fitting into certain social groups or adopting certain, often unhealthy, behaviors. Therapy can help them make choices aligned with their authentic selves rather than succumbing to external influences to help develop a self-directed identity.
Therapy often incorporates creative outlets like art, music, or writing, which can help teens express feelings they may find difficult to verbalize. This creative process can lead to breakthroughs in understanding emotions and experiences. Creative expression in therapy can also be beneficial for teens who may feel overwhelmed in a more traditional talk therapy format.
Teens from diverse cultural backgrounds may face challenges related to their identity or feel pressure to balance different cultural expectations. Therapy can give teens a safe space to discuss these experiences and work through identity conflicts, which can be particularly beneficial for first-generation teens or those who feel caught between cultural norms at home and at school. This can also be a helpful tool for teens who are navigating college as a first-generation student.
Teens who identify as LGBTQ+ may face specific challenges related to their gender identity or sexual orientation, including discrimination, bullying, or internalized shame. Therapy can offer affirmative support, validating their experiences and helping them navigate these challenges. Additionally, some teens may be grappling with spiritual or religious questions. Therapy can offer a non-judgmental space to explore these beliefs, values, and existential questions.
Support During Major Life Changes
Towards the end of high school, teens may experience some conflict with their parents over college decisions. Therapy can help adolescents develop autonomy to help prepare them for adulthood while also balancing parental expectations. Having to navigate the college process at school with their peers can also be overwhelming and detrimental to their mental health due to potential thoughts of comparison to others or self-doubt. Since they may feel they are unable to talk about this conflict at home or at school, teens can go to therapy and talk with someone about how they are feeling to relieve some of this stress.
It is important for adolescents to know that during this stressful yet exciting period of their lives, they have a support system for them when faced with any thoughts of self-doubt or even self-destruction. By knowing that therapy services are available to them, it can provide adolescents with early intervention services to prevent mental health issues from developing or worsening over time. They can learn coping mechanisms and self-care strategies that can be useful to them not just during adolescence but also later on in adulthood as well.
Therapy can also support teens who struggle with academic performance, not just by addressing stress or anxiety, but also by improving focus, time management, and study habits. It can be especially helpful for those with learning differences such as ADHD by offering strategies to help them succeed in school.
For teens dealing with chronic illnesses or physical disabilities, therapy can provide emotional support and help them cope with the impact of their health conditions. It can also assist in managing any emotional distress related to medical treatments or lifestyle changes.
Support in Healthily Navigating Food, Body Image, and Diet Culture
In our diet culture fueled society, teens often face immense pressure to have a particular body shape or eat in a particular way. This has been made even more pervasive through social media and users sharing “tips” for weight loss that are highly disordered not just for teens, but for adults as well.
When impressionable teens see this kind of messaging and these kinds of suggestions, they are susceptible to developing disordered eating or even a full blown eating disorder. While eating disorders are not caused by diet culture alone, it can be a major contributing factor, especially if the teen already has a genetic predisposition.
Through therapy, teens can navigate the thoughts and urges they are experiencing around food and body image with a professional who can help them discern fact and fiction and build a healthy relationship with food and body. It is especially important for teens struggling with food and image issues to see a provider who is informed in weight-inclusive, anti diet culture practices vs. someone who will “collude” with disorder eating. Our therapists at The Gaia Center all practice from a weight-neutral, Health At Every Size framework.
Improving Communication Skills
Therapy is a great way for adolescents to be open and vulnerable about how they are feeling with someone. It can also help teens enhance their communication skills and feel more comfortable with expressing their feelings verbally or even just talking with someone one-on-one. Especially with COVID-19 and school being online for a while, teens may have trouble transitioning back into in-person school and communicating with people face-to-face. Therapy helps teens develop effective communication skills in their work with a therapist where they can learn how to express their thoughts and feelings in a way for others to understand. It can also help teens resolve any personal or external conflicts in a productive manner that can help them build strong relationships during this stressful time in their lives.
Therapy fosters a mindset of curiosity and introspection, encouraging teens to ask questions about their behavior, emotions, and desires. This self-reflective mindset can be incredibly valuable for personal growth and self-awareness, helping them understand not just what they feel by why.
Many teens struggle to articulate their feelings beyond basic labels and therapy helps expand their emotional vocabulary to give them more ways to describe their complex emotions. This improves emotional communication, which is key in processing emotions and maintaining personal relationships.
Encouraging Independence and Responsibility
Adolescence is also a time where teens are doing lots of exploring in high school and engaging in potentially dangerous or inappropriate behaviors such as substance use, vandalism, bullying, or unsafe sexual practices. Therapy can help teens understand the consequences of these behaviors and set boundaries to ensure that these instances will not occur to them. Therapy can also help them navigate and cope with peer pressure so that teens won’t engage in these behaviors without guidance. Adolescents are naturally impulsive, and therapy can help them slow down, think through decisions, and consider consequences. Learning to pause and reflect helps teens develop greater self-control and emotional regulation.
Teen therapists are also skilled in seeing the difference between normal teenage exploration and clinically significant detrimental behaviors. Instead of “freaking out” when teens mention potentially risky behaviors, a trained counselor can look at the behaviors contextually, see if it’s just exploring or a truly unhealthy situation, and help the teen see if these behaviors are truly aligned with their values and goals or not.
Therapy can also help teens learn how to set and respect personal boundaries in friendships, romantic relationships, and family dynamics. This can be important in cases where teens struggle with peer pressure or feel overwhelmed by the expectations others may place on them.
Family therapy can benefit teens by improving communication and resolving conflicts with parents or siblings. This is especially helpful during a time when parent-child conflicts may increase as teens seek more independence. It helps both teens and their family members understand each other’s perspectives.
Therapy can foster accountability by encouraging teens to take responsibility for their actions and behaviors by reflecting on their mistakes, understanding the consequences of their actions, and making amends when necessary.
Improving Social Skills
Therapy can equip teens with the tools to manage and resolve peer conflicts in a healthy manner, such as dealing with bullying, exclusion, or misunderstandings within friend groups. By learning effective conflict resolution strategies, they can maintain healthier and more positive relationships with their peers.
Teens who struggle with social anxiety can learn how to improve their social interactions through role-playing, social exercises, and building empathy in therapy. Building empathy through therapy enables teens to connect better with others, resolve conflicts, and navigate complex social environments with compassion and understanding. Therapy can also help teens who are more introverted feel more comfortable in social situations by teaching them how to navigate conversations, build friendships, and handle social cues.
Many teens struggle with the pressures of social media and cyberbullying. Therapy can provide strategies for managing digital boundaries and coping with the impact of online environments on self-esteem and mental health. This can help teens develop a healthier relationship with technology and avoid the negative effects of overexposure to social media.
Adolescence is often the time when teens begin exploring romantic relationships, which can come with challenges such as heartbreak, jealousy, or understanding boundaries. Therapy can help teens develop healthy relationship skills to help understand what makes a supportive and respectful partnership. It can also help teens recognize unhealthy relationship dynamics early on in order to reduce the risk of future emotional harm.
Processing Trauma
Teens who have experienced trauma, such as abuse or the loss of a loved one, can use therapy to process these events in a healthy way. Therapy helps them make sense of their emotions and reactions to the trauma, reducing feelings of isolation and the likelihood of developing post-traumatic stress. If teens have developed negative behavioral patterns, such as avoidance, procrastination, or unhealthy coping mechanisms, therapy can help them recognize these cycles and break free from them. It can provide teens with insight as to how their actions contribute to ongoing stress or relationship difficulties and offers healthier alternatives.
Setting and Achieving Goals
Teens often experience anxiety about their future, such as choosing a college, career path, or life goals. Therapy can provide a space to explore these options, reduce the pressure associated with these decisions, and set long-term goals. This can help adolescents set goals that are realistic and attainable and create action plans to achieve these goals. Teens often struggle with motivation, and therapy can help identify barriers to success, such as procrastination or lack of focus, and offer strategies to overcome them.
Therapy can encourage teens to seek out positive role models or mentors in their lives, who can provide guidance and support. Whether through teachers, coaches, or community leaders, therapy reinforces the importance of having trusted adults who offer perspective and wisdom to provide teens with a sense of direction and motivation as they grow into adulthood.
Teens can experience burnout from academic pressure, extracurricular activities, and social demands. Therapy can teach them how to manage their time effectively, avoid overcommitting, and recognize when they need to rest. This can help them avoid chronic stress, exhaustion, and the negative impacts of burnout on their physical and mental health.
Many teens feel pressured to feel perfect in academics, sports, or their social lives. Therapy can help teens set realistic standards for themselves to reduce the stress associated with constantly striving for unattainable goals. This can allow them to appreciate their achievements without being afraid of failure.
Why Choose The Gaia Center for Teen Therapy in Nashville
At The Gaia Center for Embodied Healing, almost all of our clinicians work with adolescents. Our team is trained in best practices for therapy with teenagers, including teens who are more resistant to the idea of therapy.
With our wide array of specialties, we can support teens with most struggles, including anxiety, depression, trauma, eating disorders, body image, perfectionism, sports performance, bullying, substance use, suicidality, self-harm, ADHD, neurodivergence, grief, LGBTQIA+ issues, and identity exploration.
The modalities our therapists incorporate for teens include Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), EMDR, Brainspotting, art therapy, music therapy, play therapy, psychodrama, experiential therapy, parts work/IFS, somatic therapy, narrative therapy, and hypnotherapy.
