#46 - Treating Big Bad Teens

The problem with teenagers is that they are neither here nor there. Sometimes they act like adults and sometimes like children. For therapists’ this can be challenging because we don’t always know who will show up. On the positive side, teens have a lot of energy, that when channeled in the right direction, can overcome difficult obstacles. On the negative side, teens often try to assert their independence and believe they can run things better than their parents. When parents’ sense that their authority is being questioned they feel they need to be more strict and controlling. This often triggers a reaction in the teen to further assert his independence, thereby perpetuating a parent-child power struggle. As you might imagine, this often leads to a stale-mate where everyone is miserable. When these families end up in family therapy, the usual assumption is that parents need to be taught communication skills, and learn techniques to retain control, while responding in a calm way. This type of therapy is tedious, time consuming, and requires constant monitoring. Paradox therapy has a different idea. Rather than engaging in power struggle with the teen, the therapist acknowledges that the teen is indeed ‘in control and in charge’ of the family. At first, the teen is thrilled that he gets to be the ‘authority’. He can’t believe it! But after 10 minutes, when he realizes that he is responsible to make all the decisions, he suddenly has a change of heart and doesn’t want this ‘job’ any more. At that point, when he admits that he is really still a child in the family, he willingly surrenders control back to his parents.