When parents realize their teen or young adult doesn’t understand or know how to talk about their emotions, they often encourage their kids to see me. They worry about how this will affect future relationships and their ability to handle stress and high-pressure situations. The parents understand the importance; however, the teen or young adult sitting across from me rarely does.
Many of my young clients struggle with their emotions, from identifying their feelings to having the vocabulary to share them. I’ve had countless teens and young adults tell me that talking about their emotions will make them feel worse or that it’s a sign of weakness. They’ll then tell me how they hide or avoid their emotions, and what they do when they can’t anymore (spoiler alert: it’s never healthy). It takes some time and lots of open-ended questions rooted in curiosity to get them to see the importance of talking about emotions, but I’m always right by their side, every step of the way.
Self-awareness and self-regulation go hand in hand, and we can’t regulate what we don’t understand. When an adolescent doesn’t understand the........