Therapeutic Conversations with Adolescents

Therapeutic Conversations with Adolescents takes readers into the office of a seasoned therapist, where they can be a fly on the wall of live therapy sessions. Full of actual dialogue and the processing behind the choice of responses and interventions, this book stands in contrast to the dozens of books about adolescent therapy that discuss only theory, conjecture, and generic strategies. Teenagers today need therapists who can offer robust and unpretentious therapeutic relationships, as well as conversations that matter enough to hold their clients' attention and make them want to come back for more. Readers will come away from this book understanding how to tread the delicate balance between the support and confrontation, the forthrightness and discretion, and the humor and tenacity that therapists need to make a real and lasting impact with teenagers.

Janet Sasson Edgette, PsyD, therapist, author, and speaker, has worked with teenagers and their parents for over thirty years in her Philadelphia-based private practice.

1. Growing Up in a Culture of Social Media, Disconnection, and Unrelenting Pressure: Adolescent Mental Health in the 2020s 2. A Crisis in Confidence and Credibility Among American Parents 3. Playing the Long Game: Leading Teens Out of the Rabbit Hole 4. Therapy's Blemished Reputation Among Teenagers 5. What Teenagers Need From Our Therapeutic Relationships 6. Better Engagement with Teens Through Credibility, Respect, and Accountability 7. Mistakes in Therapy with Teens That Stop the Conversation, and What to Do Instead 8. Helping Teenagers to Emerge: Strategies for Bringing Forward Conversations That Matter 9. Counter-Intuitive Strategies to Keep Teenagers in Therapy Talking 10. Diagnosis and Treatment in Adolescent Therapy: Figuring Out What To Actually Do in Session 11. Revisiting Process and Content in Assessing Teenagers and Their Families 12. The Macro: The Therapy is in the Conversation-Moving Therapy Forward One Step at a Time 13. The Micro: Timing 14. Avoiding Power Battles with Teens in Therapy 15. Three Contrarian Girls. Three Different Therapies 16. Being On Everyone's Side at Once: Working with Teenagers and Their Families Together and/or Separately 17. Bolstering the Resolve of Parents Who Struggle to Hold Their Teenagers Accountable 18. Enhancing Self-Awareness in Critical, Reactive, Defensive, and Controlling Parents 19. Failing With Grace: The Power and Limits of Helping Encounters