Individual Therapy for Teen Girls

Helping girls navigate their teen years is my specialty.

If you hope to find someone outside the family who can speak to your daughter, you found the right person. In the following sections, I will outline my beliefs and how I walk alongside teenage girls during therapy.

Please rest assured that I love working with teenage girls. I love their grit, creativity, ideas, and wisdom.

As a therapist with training and experience working with teenage girls, I’m committed to providing a space for them to show up as themselves, free from judgment. My role is to serve as a witness to help them see and bloom into their own beautiful identity.

Raising teenage daughters is full of challenges.

Just getting through the week can be difficult with a teenage girl. If the activities are things they enjoy doing with their best friends, then you, as a parent, can likely engage in those activities.

Beyond that, things become more complicated. School, extracurricular activities, work, and meeting new people can create strong emotional reactions. These reactions depend on the time of day, whether she’s eaten, her menstrual cycle, and her mood upon awakening in the morning.

It can be too much for one person (you).

Help is on the way.

Sharing the burden of guiding your teenager is the way things should be. In our day and age, sometimes that looks like a trusted and skilled therapist. Working as a team with a therapist could be what you would love to have.

It might be that your teenager wants a private place to talk about things outside of the family and doesn’t want to burden you with some of the heartfelt stuff. These are all great reasons to get her involved in therapy; a proactive teenager like this is my ideal client.

We move so quickly and keep our teens busy to protect them from distractions and hurtful experiences, but often, we fail to create the opportunity to develop a deep connection with a mentor. When the rubber hits the road, having someone on your team is helpful, especially as you set and enforce boundaries. Knowing your teen has someone to turn to when they see you as the enemy can be a lifesaver.

Parenting teenage girls requires support.

The goal of therapy depends on what you hope to achieve, but the part I bring to the table is the desire to let your teenager know that she is valuable and worthy of love without having to earn it.

Sometimes, the way we think can land us in dark places. Critical, envious, or shaming thoughts from friends and social media can creep in. Without knowing, you, as a parent, may have contributed to your teenager’s thinking, and the bad habits slip out sometimes.

I will be another guiding light of positivity and helpful approaches to complex things, supporting your teenager and giving them the best chance of navigating the teenage years with as little regret as possible.

Uniqueness is not a flaw but something to celebrate.

Some of us have received labels such as “gifted,” “highly intelligent,” or “very intense.” Other common labels include sensitive, emotional, stubborn, and moody. These labels are challenging to live with when you’re a kid or a teenager.

The payoff for these kinds of personality traits doesn’t come until adulthood when you’re able to solve problems that other people can’t, strategize about ways to make money, avoid relationship pitfalls, and persist in looking for friendships with others who have a strong sense of loyalty, right and wrong, and value deep relationships.

Fitting in doesn’t mean giving in.

Your teen’s desire for that “one best friend” or a genuine, loyal relationship will likely create disappointment among typical teenage peers.

The typical teenager feels satisfied with volumes of superficial friendships and is often willing to dish out and accept poor behavior to maintain that popularity number.

Your kid might not be interested in being friends with people who make poor choices, get in trouble, or choose drugs, alcohol, or sex. They might desire to remain in their innocence longer because they see the good in that.

Standing out can have an impact.

Conversely, your gifted kid might weigh the pros and cons and take risks because they feel good and healthy.

They might feel surrounded by other people who judge them for their decisions because they don’t choose to line up with everyone else and do what everyone else is doing, including wearing whatever everyone else is wearing and saying what everybody else says.

So, in these ways, our kids, who are different, often feel alienated and alone. In therapy, we normalize that by letting them know they have a safe place to express that feeling and develop the skills to deal with it.

Emotions need challenging – positively.

Managing being different requires skillfulness in noticing the feelings that often overtake one’s entire body, such as stomachache and headache, and not wanting to go to school or to an event because one feels sick physically or anxious about being different.

These feelings can seem overwhelming, so we work on ways to get ahead of and manage those sensations. We work on ways to notice them and allow them to be there but not to drive the show.

We also work on channeling that emotion into our expressive activities, which every human can identify with. Still, only the most intense and gifted among us can find the words in the images to depict it accurately. Often, it’s because they feel that feeling so intensely.

Healing from the past makes navigating the present accessible.

We help improve self-esteem because their understanding of their inherent worthiness helps them reprocess some of their negative experiences related to their giftedness and intensity.

I use the word “sensitive” in my work, but I try to define it as a very “sensory kid.” If somebody yells at them or if they experience something very hurtful, but other people might not understand why that’s hurtful, they might respond by saying, “Well, that didn’t hurt my feelings, so why does it hurt yours?” or “You should just get over it; stop being a drama queen.”

We will reprocess those events from this new understanding that they are sensitive and those things hurt them.

Encourage and nurture sensitivity.

From here, they may develop an understanding of their needs. It may not be in their best interest to experience abrasive behavior all the time, and they need to nurture themselves and tell themselves that they are OK for having these deep feelings.

Their uniqueness and difference are gifts and represent superpowers. Their ability to feel so deeply requires nurturing and protection. We will discuss different ways that sensitivity can benefit them and then demonstrate practically how their gifts will impact their lives.

They will learn to make choices to live their lives in a non-traumatizing way. As a result, they can add certain comforts and make choices that allow their giftedness to bloom.

Don’t allow bullying to define self-worth.

Bullying is an experience that can break a parent’s heart. You want to be able to convince your child that they are not what other people say they are. You want them to know they are lovely and unique; being different is not bad.

It takes a community of people telling our children that celebrating what makes them unique and thinking outside the box will lead us to a better future.

I hope to be part of your team that pours into your child, helping them identify their strengths and develop the things that are uniquely their gifts. I also help normalize the difficulties of living as a different, intense, unique kid.

Therapy can make a difference for teen girls.

As parents, you will experience relief as we create a team to help relieve the burden of worrying, develop a positive strategy, and deal with the emotional and challenging teen years. You will notice an incredible difference.

Individual counseling for your teen does not stop with them. I will always include parents and remind your teenager of your healthy relationship goal. Parents will receive support, and I will listen to your inner wisdom about parenting your child.

Rest assured that you will strategize with someone who works with families of teenagers full-time and can provide insight and perspective on the issues you must process as a family.

Therapy can help your teenage daughter gain strength and support and become capable of navigating difficult emotions. I believe in their ability to come out of adolescence with a strong sense of themselves and their value. Set up your first appointment today.