What is psychoanalytic therapy for teenagers and young adults?
My approach is psychoanalytic, which means that I take into account the more underlying factors that present themselves as emotional or behavioural difficulties.
In mental health these are often called ‘symptoms’. Psychoanalytic therapy operates on the understanding that difficulties or symptoms are often an expression of undigested feelings that actually have important meanings. Taking time to talk through and understand the way your mind might be responding to certain feelings and events can provide relief to young people and their parents, helping things feel more manageable.
It’s a different approach to treatments based on prescribed strategies and allows young people the time and space they need to work at lasting changes. It’s grounded in cutting-edge child development research and decades of work understanding the mind from a psychoanalytic perspective. In psychoanalytic therapy, the young person develops a model for thinking about their feelings and the problems they have experienced over time, and in a way they can also draw strength from in the future.
It’s also an evidence-based treatment recommended by NICE for depression in children and young people including where CBT has been unsuccessful. Click here for a recent review of the effectiveness of psychoanalytic therapy with young people.
Where there are serious mental health risks, I may suggest that you also seek advice and support from a child and adolescent psychiatrist alongside your child’s therapy so that it can continue as smoothly as possible. In these instances, I will also work with you to agree a clear safety plan.
What are the next steps?
If you are a parent of a child under 18 or a young adult I suggest you get in touch with me by phone, email, or using the ‘contact form’ in the first instance so we can arrange to have a brief discussion about the nature of your concerns. There is no charge for a brief enquiring call, up to 15-minutes.
Or, if you are a young adult aged 18 to 24 you are welcome to contact me directly. You may prefer to contact me together with your parent/guardian, whoever is financing your therapy.
Following this, we can look to set up a consultation where I meet with you face-to-face and in person to talk about things in more depth. From here, we can agree a short period of assessment (usually 3 sessions that with children under 18 also involves a separate parent appointment) to arrive at an initial understanding of the problems.
Some families find that assessment is therapeutic in itself. However, for young people who are finding things more difficult, regular weekly or more intensive individual therapy might be indicated (for example, three times a week) to make sure there is enough space to work out issues at a pace that feels manageable. This can be short or long-term, depending on the seriousness of the issues.
There are also circumstances where parent work alongside the child’s therapy - or in its own right - is a helpful way forward, or where I will recommend you consider a different approach.
I am based on Cresset Road, Hackney, East London which is off Well Street, E9. The nearest tube is Homerton Station on the overground which is a 10-minute walk from my clinic. I am currently working face-to-face, in person from the consulting room.
