Therapy for Teens

Supporting your teenager’s mental health can be hard, no matter how much you care. We’re here to help.

If your teen is struggling with a mental health issue like anxiety or depression, having trouble processing stressful situations or work through emotions, counseling can be a valuable tool for growth.

It’s natural for teenagers to want more independence and start pushing away as they begin the transition from child to adult. This doesn’t mean you haven’t done everything you can to help them—it just means the support you give may need to take a new form. Giving them the opportunity to connect with a teen therapist could offer that space they need to get help for life’s challenges while maintaining that feeling of agency.

Neither you, nor your teen, have to navigate this period alone. At Therapy for Women in Philadelphia, we’ve helped thousands of teens work through anxiety, depression, OCD, ADHD, disordered eating, LGBTQ+ challenges, and many other issues. We’re confident that our teen therapists can help your child too!

Life in the social media age is full of unprecedented stress for teens.

According to a 2023 CDC study, roughly 57 percent of high school-age girls struggle with “persistent feelings of sadness and hopelessness,” which is noticeably higher than the 36 percent reported in 2011.* Between the rise of social media, online bullying, sky-high academic expectations, and living through a global pandemic, teens face a world full of unprecedented stressors.

Social media in particular has added so many new challenges to the lives of teens. It’s created a toxic “compare-and-despair” culture where kids are always comparing themselves to unrealistic standards. It can be especially hard for teen girls, who are already growing up navigating a system that doesn’t provide the support it does for boys.

To complicate things further, many parents had a wildly different adolescence than teenagers today. While some things—peer pressure, school stress, and hormonal issues—remain the same, social media, tech, and our constantly-connected world has created teen mental health challenges that didn’t exist when most of us were young.

No matter how you feel about your relationship with your child, we could all use extra support in our parenting. That’s what our teen therapists are here to provide, whether in-person in PA and NJ, or online in 42 states.

What to expect in teen counseling sessions

Our approach to therapy is very flexible depending on the needs, goals, and age of your teen. Typically, we will meet with your teen one-on-one for the first session and then meet with both of you together for the last 15 minutes. Although the majority of therapy will take place between your teen and their counselor, we always make sure parents play an active role in their teen’s treatment. We can hold monthly phone calls and check-ins with you to discuss your teen’s progress and listen to your feedback.

In our work with teens we use a wide range of evidence-based treatment approaches. We utilize Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) to teach teens distress tolerance skills so that they can manage difficult emotions instead of self-sabotaging or avoiding their fears. We also draw from Internal Family Systems (IFS) Therapy to help teens practice self-compassion and increase their self-awareness, enabling them to make decisions for the good of their future selves.

Many of our therapists also use Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) to help teens identify their values and understand when their actions aren’t aligned with those values. This way, they can live more mindfully and become aware of how certain behaviors (substance use, avoidance, etc.) impact their mental health.

Ultimately, our goal is to teach your teen how to use the skills they learn and carry that with them into young adulthood. Between our help and your support, we believe your teen can boost their confidence, improve their relationships, and learn to navigate the challenges of an increasingly complex world.