Working with teens is very eye opening and for me it is incredibly rewarding. Teens bring so much intelligence and youthful spirit into my every day counseling experience. When teens come into the practice, they are usually coming in to please their parents because their parents want their teen to either behave differently or work on an issue that is causing conflict. On top of this, the teen often does not even know why they are acting in the way that they are. That is why the form of therapy I use with teens is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. This form of therapy focuses on why a specific behavior is happening and what is happening in the brain that creates this reaction/response/behavior.

            When a reaction/response/behavior is happening there is a process that has occurred that has created this response. This starts with an event. An event happens that triggers certain thoughts. These thoughts yield feelings, sometimes simultaneously. In return, these thoughts and feelings yield the response. When working with teens, I like to focus on the behavior first. Then I work my way through the thoughts and feelings with the client. After figuring this out, I like to work on what created these thoughts and feelings. This usually brings us to the event/trigger that produces the response. Upon learning this, I work with the teen on how to work through this process using coping mechanisms in order to yield a more positive response than what might be occurring.  Then from there, it is on the teen to take control of their life and to begin writing a better story that they love living. 

Shawna Johnson, BSW, MSW Intern