Stuck After Treatment: Real Options Parents Overlook, with Will White

Episode 323 ABOUT THE EPISODE: Will White has been doing this work since last century, and he means that literally. Licensed since 1989, he has worked in group homes, boarding schools, mental health centers, and in 1996, co-founded Summit Achievement, a wilderness therapy program he ran for nearly 27 years. When he tells you the landscape of behavioral health for young people has shifted more in the last five years than in the previous three decades combined, he knows what he’s talking about.  The externalizers of a generation ago, the kids who broke things, slammed doors, and announced their pain loudly, have largely given way to a different kind of struggling young person. One who is anxious, inward, and frozen. Who won’t leave the room, won’t leave the house, and whose parents keep quietly rearranging life around them in an effort to keep the peace. Will has watched this pattern closely, including at Mountain Valley Treatment Center, where young residents had become so overwhelmed by anxiety that the outside world felt completely out of reach. The treatment models that worked before are not always the ones that work now, and the gap between what young people need and what is actually available to them is widening. That gap is exactly what Will set out to address when he helped launch The Trade, a new nonprofit program in rural New Hampshire for young adults (all genders) ages 18 to 30. It’s not a therapy program in the traditional sense and if you have a young person stuck in that uncomfortable in-between of not ready for college, not ready for independence, but also not well-served by just being home, it may be exactly what you did not know to look for. I wanted Will back on the show (he appears way back in episode 14) because his view of the bigger picture is one I trust. In this conversation, we talk about the seismic shifts in behavioral health, what is driving the rise in anxiety, and why less talk and more doing might be what this generation actually needs. If your young person is stuck and none of the usual paths seem to fit, this one is for you. YOU'LL LEARN: The shift Will has watched from externalizing kids to anxious, frozen ones, and what he believes is behind it What The Trade is and who it’s built for Why apprentices get paid from day one, and what receiving a first paycheck does to a young person The over-accommodation pattern Will kept seeing in parents, and when caring starts to make things worse What Will leaves exhausted parents with, from someone who has been doing this work for four decades EPISODE RESOURCES: The Trade website Will White on Hopestream episode #14 Trish Ruggles, Therapeutic Consultant at Pathfinder Consulting Mountain Valley Treatment Center website This podcast is part of a nonprofit called Hopestream CommunityLearn about The Stream, our private online community for momsFind us on Instagram hereWatch the podcast on YouTube hereDownload a free e-book, Worried Sick: A Compassionate Guide For Parents When Your Teen or Young Adult Child Misuses Drugs and AlcoholHopestream Community is a registered 501(c)3 nonprofit organization and an Amazon Associate. We may make a small commission if you purchase from our links.