Writing on Therapy, Teenagers and Getting Unstuck

Why “I should be grateful…” can become one more thing to feel bad about. Depression tends to leave the knowing intact and strip out the feeling, and the mind goes looking for an explanation.

Most parents arrive at the idea of therapy late, and often sideways. What every parent should know before they need it: when good therapy is worth the investment, and how to tell a good therapist from one who will waste your money and your child’s trust.

Respecting a teenager’s privacy (with non-negotiable exceptions) isn’t soft parenting; it’s evidence-based parenting. Autonomy is a core psychological need, and intrusive, controlling parenting is reliably linked to more anxiety and depression, not less risk.

Before we get to when to worry (or rather, when to be ‘concerned’), I want to be clear about what’s normal. Which, by the way, is most of it.

I have sat opposite the parents of troubled, difficult and often frighteningly bright teenagers for fifteen years. I am also the mother of three girls in their late teens and early twenties.