Therapy for Teens

Some moodiness, privacy, and eye-rolling is developmentally normal, even healthy. What’s worth attention is change and duration: grades dropping, quitting activities they loved, sleeping much more or less, withdrawing from friends rather than just from you, or intense irritability that lasts weeks rather than days. Trust the gap between the kid you know and the one you’re seeing. And if your teen ever talks about hopelessness or hurting themselves, don’t wait and watch: reach out to a professional right away. For everything short of that, here’s a good rule: if you’re worried enough to search this question, a consultation is worth the hour.

Timing and framing matter more than the perfect words. Skip the big sit-down talk, which reads as an ambush, and raise it casually, maybe in the car where nobody has to make eye contact. Frame therapy as support rather than punishment or repair: “you deserve someone in your corner who isn’t me” lands better than “we need to fix what’s going on with you.” Offer choice wherever you can, since agency is the whole game with teens, including a say in picking their therapist. We wrote a full guide on this exact conversation.

Yes, and for some teens it works better. This is a generation fluent in screens, and plenty of teens open up more easily from their own room than in an unfamiliar office. Online sessions also remove the after-school logistics battle, which matters when consistency is what makes therapy work. That said, some teens do better in person, and with our offices in Philadelphia, Bala Cynwyd, and Collingswood plus virtual options, you can choose what fits your kid rather than what’s merely available.

It depends on what they’re working through. Some teens come for a season, learning skills for a specific stressor like a friendship blowup or school anxiety, and wrap up in a few months. Others benefit from longer support, especially with anxiety, depression, or disordered eating that’s been building for a while. Your teen’s therapist will talk with both of you about goals early on, and those monthly parent check-ins mean you’ll never wonder whether progress is happening. Therapy shouldn’t feel endless to anyone, including your teen.

We work with kids and teens ages 10 and up. Younger adolescents and pre-teens get an approach suited to their age, since a 10-year-old and a 17-year-old need very different things from therapy. If you’re not sure whether your child is a fit, just ask during your consultation call and we’ll tell you honestly.

Yes. Our in-house psychiatric team can evaluate and treat teens, which matters more than most parents realize. If medication becomes part of your teen’s care for something like ADHD, anxiety, or depression, their prescriber and their therapist work under the same roof and actually talk to each other. No repeating your family’s story to a stranger across town, no gaps between providers, and no six-month waitlist for a child psychiatrist somewhere else.

It’s incredibly frustrating when your teen goes to therapy and you don’t see any progress. The truth is that many counselors are not experts in working with teens. We are, since our practitioners are specifically trained to work with adolescents and their families. And since we use a wide range of interventions and have many therapists on staff, we’re confident that we can come up with a treatment plan that brings lasting change into your teen’s life.

Many teens are worried about adults telling them what to do, but that’s not the case at Therapy for Women. We’re very supportive and empowering and most of the teens we see come to find therapy fulfilling and rewarding. What’s more, your teen is probably used to seeing the doctor when they don’t feel physically well. In a similar way, we encourage them to think of therapy as a place to attend when they don’t feel emotionally well.

Confidentiality is very important in building a trusting relationship with any client. Your teen’s therapist will determine what is needed for them in terms of parental involvement. We use a limited confidentiality agreement, meaning that we want caregivers to be part of the treatment process, but they also need to know that what their teen shares in sessions stays between them and their therapist.