Adolescents benefit from having a safe, supportive environment where they can process struggles and pressures they encounter in their teen world. Typical challenges in this phase of development include creating independence, defining one’s identity, establishing and maintaining healthy relationships, and balancing the everyday demands of teenage life. Although tweens and teens have the ability to communicate their needs verbally, they thrive with creative arts and activity based interventions.  The combination of talk therapy with activities and expressive arts can help to facilitate growth, change and a deeper understanding of self.

Expressive Arts and Activity Therapy offers tweens and teens an opportunity to express themselves and communicate when words are hard to find.  Although adolescents have the ability to talk about thoughts and feelings, creative therapies provide a unique opportunity to share information without the confines of language.  This can lead to personal growth through increased understanding of self, others and experiences.

Parent Consultation is a vital component to working with any child or adolescent who is in counseling. Parent consultation helps therapists gain insight and have a holistic view of the child to identify areas of concern and struggle as well as growth and change. In addition, therapists provide psycho-education and guidance so parents can promote identification and expression of feelings as well as healthy boundaries that will complement their child’s growth in therapy.