In my practice, I often see teens make progress in therapy that astounds and mystifies their parents.
Here’s a typical example: I helped a teen successfully begin to address an academic challenge (a crisis, really) during a 50 minute session. He had refused to address the crisis all weekend, despite his parents’ earnest efforts. When the kid emerged from the therapy session with a plan and high motivation to implement it, the parents asserted that they’d had the same goal as I had but couldn’t make any headway with their child. I wondered if the parents might have felt threatened by their child’s success with me, which is not the collaborative relationship I’m working toward! I wanted the parents to understand and run with what we did.
So…. how does this growth happen in therapy, before it happens at home? Am I magical? Can science alone fix the malady? Is it just a matter of trying hard enough? Do I pay the kids with cold hard cash?
No, no, no, and no! It’s because I’m a therapist, and this is therapy. Therapy relies on an unusual guiding relationship that works in a nice little office or video call . Yet my therapeutic attitude can make it possible for a kid to try something new and previously inaccessible, and then take their new sense of self and try it on out in the world.
While parents can’t be therapists to their kids (I found my own kids their own therapists as needed until they grew up and sought their own therapists), there are some aspects of therapy that I want to share with you. As parents, teachers, or coaches you, too, can use these “tricks of the trade” to build a guiding relationship that works for your kids outside of a therapy session.
Here are some of the most important reasons a therapeutic attitude works to promote new growth.
Reason 1. I remain calm, because:
- I practice being calm, as a job requirement of being a therapist.
- I designed my whole building, office, and therapeutic approach to promote calm and/or active-alert states of mind.
- Since I am not a parent or teacher who is judged (unfairly) by society on the basis of this child’s performance, I do not have to worry about social standards or judgements – I can be both calm and weird creative.
- -Since I am not the parent whose heart is deeply bound up with this kid (though I do care about them), I can tolerate the child’s failure, cheekiness, anxiety, depression, rage, etc. without feeling threatened or confused. I can remain calm.
Thus: My being calm keeps the child calm and keeps their higher brain (cerebral cortex) working WITH their emotional brain to take risks, try new things, and solve important problems.
Reason 2. I remain focused, because:
- I structure the time and place of the meeting – no interruptions, fidgets allowed but reduce distractions, clear start and stop time.
- I clarify the main stakeholders’ (e.g., kid’s, parent’s, teacher’s, coach’s) needs and wishes, establish what my role is, and maintain that role with less influence by others’ wishes. This keeps me focused.
- I have made a treatment plan for the kid in which I know why I am focusing on a given pattern of behavior, thinking, and feeling. This provides a compass for the work.
Thus: My being focused helps the child focus and enables us to condense the effort into a shorter time span with concretely observable results.
Reason 3. I remain secure in my own sense of power, because
- I am not the parent, so the teen doesn’t have a developmental need to assert independence and self-determination specifically from me as much as they do from their parents. That means that many questions of power do not come up (as much).
- In this situation, I don’t have to prove anything to anyone to feel good about myself (although I may have to prove my trustworthiness and competence to lots of people, and I can do that). I do have to do other things to feel good about myself, but it’s not about proof.
- I don’t believe that proving that I have power works to bring on any lasting (or even immediate) change.
- I know I have power and I try to be conscious of how I acknowledge and assert it. I do assert it intentionally and directly at times, but not often.
- I have other ways of guiding kids than asserting power, and I use those a lot.
Thus: When we are not in a power struggle, the kid has more energy and safety than in most situations to be vulnerable, let down their guard, ask for and receive help and guidance, ask for and receive respect and encouragement.
Reason 4. I am responsive and “nimble in the moment” because
- I have trained for years to be aware of multichannel communication, context cues, and regularly occurring interpersonal patterns… and to build a wide range of responses to what kids are doing at any given moment.
- I have had thorough interpersonal psychodynamic (=dynamic with a capital D), family systems, and Relationship Development Intervention training to think and talk and understand these motions between people. This helps me notice and jump into tiny opportunities within a single hour (when I’m on my game).
- I was raised in a highly connected family of origin, and practice high connection in my immediate and extended family and friendships, so it is easy for me to resonate with and respond to almost anyone. This interpersonal resonance does give me “special powers.” But resonance is a human power that parents, teachers, and kids also have and can magnify with practice.
Thus: Being responsive in the moment allows me to establish and maintain trust quickly and use a great many opportunities in session to set the child up for success on the goals at hand.
As a therapist, my job is not just to help your kid do things that they couldn’t do before, but also to help your child take what we have learned and bring it out into the real world. We can all be on the same team, with the therapist providing a special opportunity for a child, teen, or adult to try new ways of experiencing themselves in the face of challenges.
I offer to you that, while you don’t have to be a therapist, cultivating a therapeutic attitude of calm, focus, power-security, and in-the-moment responsiveness will help you guide and launch the children in your lives with fewer melt-downs, power struggles, and suffering, and more trust, creativity, and joy.