Counseling That Works – Engaging That Resilient Teen

“Forty-four? The teenager asks. Yes, that’s my age. At least it is for a few more months. That’s what I tell my young clients, even though everything within me is anxious to assure them that I am 18 years old. and 26 years old. ” Although adolescence is a time that most of us remember as stressful, uncomfortable, and confusing, it is also a period in life that we often want to make up for. We do it because it was a time of adventure, discovery and euphoria. of the feelings that we experience in adolescence is usually present in the treatment of adolescents.

Giving therapy to angry or distrustful teens who don’t even want to be in our offices, let alone talk, is one of the most challenging scenarios we face as Christian counselors. However, it is not one that we encounter infrequently. Many teenagers come to our offices informing that the school thinks I should be here, or that my parents say that I should go or that the court says that I should. How do we involve these young people? Where do we start

An angry young man: Johnny was one of those young people I met early in my career. I had just started my first job in the field and Johnny was a high school student who had been referred for services by his school. He was described as a very worried, angry and uncommunicative young man who tended to be a loner and was given to behave strangely. He reportedly used to make all kinds of noises during class and would frequently get up from his seat and move across the classroom floor like an eel. My supervisor explained that Johnny had already been through three other therapists and that I did not have to accept him as a client. However, since I needed to increase my caseload, I was free to do so. Johnny came to our first session in jeans, sneakers, a black T-shirt, and a partially open black leather jacket. Dropping into a chair, she pushed herself to the corner while stretching her legs. He dropped his chin to his chest and pulled up the collar of his jacket, which he then yanked angrily closed. Any slight movement of my head to glimpse his face was met with a change in posture from the client. This boy did not allow any contact.

All my attempts to establish a report bounced off Johnny like a brick wall. Listen, I said, I know you don’t want to be here. I’m sure the last thing you wanted to do was run here as soon as classes were over. He raised his head but dropped it again, shaking it from side to side. We sat in a painfully long silence and I began to think more about how Johnny might be feeling right now. I also started to pay more attention to what it felt like to sit there and how I might have felt when I was his age. I thought about what he knew about Johnny and how he could have handled those feelings if he remained defiant, impassive silence was not his main reason for being. This is boring! I let go. Johnny grunted and I turned around. I made an exaggerated move to stay in his sight. He turned further and I got up from my chair, saying I couldn’t take the boredom anymore and leaned against the wall to gain a view. Johnny turned, head down, chin tucked into his jacket. I threw myself to the ground in front of him.

I moved back and forth several times, looked at the clock, and sat down in front of it again. Look, I don’t know about you, but sitting here feels like a detention. Johnny’s head popped up, curious and suspicious. Getting out of my chair and throwing myself on the floor makes it a little better, but it also makes me feel stupid and probably makes you think I’m pretty weird. There has to be a better way to spend time together. If you don’t want to come back next week, I’ll tell my supervisor that this is not going to be productive and you won’t have to come back. Johnny sat up straighter. But here is your situation.

The school has told your parents that you need to go for counseling and your parents have made it clear that they will follow the school’s instructions. You don’t have to come here again, but that means your parents will take you to another service that has been recommended and you will have to keep repeating this until the school is satisfied that you have gone for counseling. That can be here or nowhere else. If it’s done here with me, that’s fine, but I’d rather not spend another hour like this. If you don’t want to talk about home or school, and then bring something, we can talk about … music, books, comics, magazines, cards, if you want. So how about next week? Do you want me to ask my supervisor to recommend other services to your parents, or do you want to plan to come back here and bring something we can talk about or do next week? Johnny shrugged. No matter. Is it true that you like to ride BMX? Don’t have magazines or catalogs on them? Yes, I have a lot of them. You mean you could bring them here to read? Sure, but if you don’t want to talk about them, bring me some. I don’t want to do graphics with you sitting here.

The following week, Johnny showed up with about five magazines. I started learning things like gear ratios and the various alloys used in making BMX bikes. I also found out what excited and disappointed this incredibly bright young man. Three weeks later, we were walking to my office to begin our session. Johnny was moving quickly and ahead of me. We need to talk! My mom is really starting to piss me off! Over the next several months, I continued to learn more about BMX bikes and we did a great productive job, the positive effects of which were reported from school and home.

Harnessing our own creativity: Throughout my professional career I have (hopefully) matured as a counselor through ongoing training and experience. I have learned to incorporate and refine bonding, reframing, and paradox techniques to negotiate the kinds of challenges teens present. However, the reason I chose to share this case from my first month in the field is to help us remember the intuitive and creative use of ourselves to help others that was there when we were first drawn into the field. Before we had theory and training, we had ourselves, our sensitivity to others, and our openness to the spirits that guided us.

I strongly believe that counselors should be informed by theory and prepared through training, but they should enhance and not replace the natural gifts that previously existed. When working with clients, especially those like Johnny, it is very important not to be rigidly limited by one’s own therapeutic model. Ultimately, counselors must be directed and constrained by the therapeutic relationship of their knowledge of themselves and their clients and not by rigid loyalty or dependence on a given model or theory.

It is also helpful to re-frame ourselves and our clients. When we make the shift from viewing these situations as those in which we must overcome resistance to those in which we must increase client preparedness, we make a major change in attitude that will reinforce our roles as facilitators and help us protect ourselves from seeing our clients. customers. as adversaries. Find a counselor for suggestions.

It is also important to find something in our clients that is pleasant and interesting and to delve into their interests. Most importantly, we must be willing to join our clients on their own ground, to enter their territory. This may involve assuming an inferior position from time to time, but isn’t that implicit on some level in all of our therapy? I mean, how can we hope to help our clients if we don’t learn from them first?