No Cap: It’s Time to Glow Up Your Teen Therapy Skills
Curt and Katie chat about how to work effectively with teen clients. We look at what adults often get wrong about teens as well as how therapists can develop real relationships with their teen clients. We also look at the differences that can show up in how you do therapy with teens.
Click here to scroll to the podcast transcript.Transcript
In this podcast episode, we talk about effective therapy with teenaged clients
Curt and Katie have both specialized in working with teens at different points in their careers and figured they should share what they’ve learned to support other therapists who’d like to work with teens.
What do therapists (and caregivers) get wrong about teenagers?
“Kids are people that have motivations and goals and quirks, and they are not behavioral problems to solve.” – Katie Vernoy, LMFT
- You won’t reach teens if you treat them like behavioral problems to solve
- It is helpful to show teens that they will be listened to, rather than just subject to whatever their parents or caregivers want them to do in therapy
- Therapists can seem less authentic if they try to be “the cool therapist”
What is needed in an effective therapeutic alliance with teen therapy clients?
- Identifying what the teen needs from the therapist (e.g., confidant, older sibling, parental type)
- Authenticity is key as teens will often see through it if you’re not
- Defining boundaries of the relationship
- Looking toward client autonomy
- Showing stability and constancy
- Encouraging safety and agency
- Being a trusted, consistent adult
What are the differences in therapy between teens and adults?
“Ultimately what I see ends up working with teenagers in the situation where you’re bringing their family back in, is it’s being able to not be so shaken up one way or the other…I’ve got to take this big swing to the parent side of thing, or I’m going to overly defend the child side of things. And a lot of this comes from being able to structure your therapy from the very beginning as far as, here’s what my role is, here’s how I’m going to show up…it’s back to a lot of those very basic therapeutic alliance [ideals]…here’s what our goals are.” – Curt Widhalm, LMFT
- Having caregivers involved in schedule and decision-making, having a huge impact on teens
- Therapy for teens is often a relationship where identity can be tested
- Therapists can be an outside voice for both teens and adults, but teens may need this more
- Caregivers are more likely to be a part of treatment for teens
Resources for Modern Therapists mentioned in this Podcast Episode:
We’ve pulled together resources mentioned in this episode and put together some handy-dandy links. Please note that some of the links below may be affiliate links, so if you purchase after clicking below, we may get a little bit of cash in our pockets. We thank you in advance!
Article: Young people’s experience of the therapeutic alliance: A systematic review
Relevant Episodes of MTSG Podcast:
How Therapists Can Really Help Kids Who Are Being Bullied
Modern Therapist Reflections on Preventing a School Shooting
What is Play Therapy?: An Interview with Ofra Obejas, LCSW
The Risks and Consequences of Failing to Report Child Abuse
How Much Autonomy Do Therapy Clients Deserve? Balancing client autonomy with therapist skill
The Power and the Peril of Pop Psychology
Risk Factors for Suicide: What therapists should know when treating teens and adults
Who we are:
Curt Widhalm, LMFT
Curt Widhalm is in private practice in the Los Angeles area. He is the cofounder of the Therapy Reimagined conference, an Adjunct Professor at Pepperdine University and CSUN, a former Subject Matter Expert for the California Board of Behavioral Sciences, former CFO of the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists, and a loving husband and father. He is 1/2 great person, 1/2 provocateur, and 1/2 geek, in that order. He dabbles in the dark art of making “dad jokes” and usually has a half-empty cup of coffee somewhere nearby. Learn more at: http://www.curtwidhalm.com
Katie Vernoy, LMFT
Katie Vernoy is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, coach, and consultant supporting leaders, visionaries, executives, and helping professionals to create sustainable careers. Katie, with Curt, has developed workshops and a conference, Therapy Reimagined, to support therapists navigating through the modern challenges of this profession. Katie is also a former President of the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists. In her spare time, Katie is secretly siphoning off Curt’s youthful energy, so that she can take over the world. Learn more at: http://www.katievernoy.com
A Quick Note:
Our opinions are our own. We are only speaking for ourselves – except when we speak for each other, or over each other. We’re working on it.
Our guests are also only speaking for themselves and have their own opinions. We aren’t trying to take their voice, and no one speaks for us either. Mostly because they don’t want to, but hey.
Stay in Touch with Curt, Katie, and the whole Therapy Reimagined #TherapyMovement:
Consultation services with Curt Widhalm or Katie Vernoy:
Connect with the Modern Therapist Community:
Our Facebook Group – The Modern Therapists Group
Modern Therapist’s Survival Guide Creative Credits:
Voice Over by DW McCann https://www.facebook.com/McCannDW/
Music by Crystal Grooms Mangano https://groomsymusic.com/
Transcript for this episode of the Modern Therapist’s Survival Guide podcast (Autogenerated):
Transcripts do not include advertisements just a reference to the advertising break (as such timing does not account for advertisements).
… 0:00
(Opening Advertisement)
Announcer 0:00
You’re listening to the Modern Therapist’s Survival Guide, where therapists live, breathe and practice as human beings. To support you as a whole person and a therapists, here are your hosts, Curt Widhalm And Katie Vernoy.
Curt Widhalm 0:12
Welcome back, modern therapists. This is the Modern Therapist’s Survival Guide. I’m Curt Widhalm with Katie Vernoy, and this is the podcast for therapists about the things that we do in our practices, the ways that we show up for clients, and we are diving into an episode where we’re talking about what some people consider the absolute worst people on earth, and that is working on teenagers. It’s not a sentiment that I share, but I do hear from a lot of people, like, I just don’t want to work with teenagers. They’re they’re vicious, they’re mean, and I’m like, I I’ve got my connections with them. I’ve got a practice that revolves working around them. I got started working with this population because I got licensed when I was, like, 25 years old.
Katie Vernoy 1:07
But you just almost a teen yourself.
Curt Widhalm 1:10
Well, yeah, I went out to start my private practice, and there was not a whole lot of adults who were like, You’ve got the world figured out. I’m coming to work with you.
Katie Vernoy 1:19
Sure.
Curt Widhalm 1:20
So, I started working with teenagers because I was like, Hey, I know that you have, I was just kind of through your phase of life. I’m closer in age to you than than to your parents. That changed at some point and now…
Katie Vernoy 1:35
Dramatically…
Curt Widhalm 1:36
Dramatically.
Katie Vernoy 1:37
Dramatically has changed.
Curt Widhalm 1:38
So now, rather than being like, I’m close to being a teenager. I’m just like, I hang out with enough teenagers that I’m more like a recycled teenager, that I’ve got some wisdom. I’ve been around a little bit, but we’re talking about this episode from kind of the concept of like, what is it that really allows for some people to connect better with teenagers than others. And if we can share some of our wisdom, some of the research, we’d love to do that. I know, Katie, you used to work with teenagers. What’s the magic sauce that you’re you’re bringing to be able to connect with people?
Katie Vernoy 2:18
Well, for me, I started working with, actually kids of all ages, but older kids and teens, almost from the beginning of my foray into mental health, when I was working as like a childcare worker, and then as a case manager, and then as a therapist, and then as a supervisor, and then as a program manager. Like I worked with kids for probably 15, 20 years at the beginning of my career. And I did some of it in private practice, but most of it was within agency work. And you know, if we’re talking about a special sauce or some sort of magic here, I think it’s kids are people that have motivations and goals and quirks, and they are not behavioral problems to solve. And I think too often, at least adults in the world. I think therapists have figured this out, but I think a lot of adults in the world are just like, my kid is being awful. Fix them. Not let’s figure out what’s going on with my kid, because clearly they’re having a hard time.
Curt Widhalm 3:24
I hear, you know, whether it’s my supervisees, going back to my own practice around working with kids, I think that there’s really something to dive into there on treating them like people, like individual people. Because, you know, sometimes parents will bring in their kids and be like, you know, behavior problem like you’re describing or something like that, and therapists will be like, Okay, I’ve got to really get to know your kid to be able to kind of, you know, start to be able to address that. Which I think is well intentioned, and kind of what we end up doing anyway. But sometimes it almost feels like there’s something missing to that approach, and that’s, you know, the stuff that I want to share through this episode. We’ve we’ve talked before, kind of like there’s some of the things that we do that make us more like approachable for teenagers, and I’ve shared on the podcast before around things that I’ll do, like in the first session, where it’s just like, all right, I’m gonna bring parents in, have the kid there. I’m gonna hear the parents be like, we brought in little Johnny for, you know, these behavior issues and blah, blah, blah, and we’ll go through kind of informed consent kind of things. And then I send the parents out to the waiting room, and I turn to Little Johnny, and I go, I’ve heard your parents side of this. What’s going on? And there’s just this really nice power shift that kind of prioritizes, I am going to listen to you separately. I am not just another adult telling you what to do. This is kind of something that we can do to help bridge some of that. Like getting to know the kids a little bit more, but it’s almost like we’ve got to take some of that wisdom that we have as adults and to be able to pull it out of teenagers, as opposed to just waiting for them to be like All right, what do you know? You’re some old person who’s above the age of 20. What do you know if you’re not into whatever the current Zeitgeist is? Then, then we can become as therapists, kind of at risk of then just trying to be like the hip therapists that’s into all of the little kid things that you know is going on these days. And then we sound even more out of touch.
Katie Vernoy 5:40
Oh, for sure. I mentioned to you before we hit record, just the so many memes about, you know, teen, teen therapists trying to, you know, dress a certain way, or, know, all the latest lingo, or all of that stuff, and kind of showing up, kind of that faux cool, versus, like, looking like a professional when they’re we’re talking to adults. And that just didn’t resonate with me. I think I do try to be a little bit more in the know, or cooler or casual in my speech when I when I work with younger folks. But I don’t think that’s like I don’t think being like the quote, unquote cool therapists is quite right, at least for me, because I’m just not cool. Maybe for people who are actually cool, show up as you are, but mostly I feel like it’s being genuine and identifying what it is that a the kid in front of me needs from the adult, from an adult, from a stable adult. And so that could be kind of like the wished for older sibling. Or it could be a confidant. It could be an equal, you know, like I just need to have somebody hear me out. My parents keep putting me down a peg and not trusting that I’m going to eventually be an adult. It could be showing a different way of being almost parental and helping them to have a different experience. But there’s so many different ways that I feel like I show up. They’re all part of me. It’s all genuine, but the role I play with them, I think, really comes from a place of what is it that they are not experiencing, or what could they experience to be able to process what’s ever going on, or to try to sort through whatever is causing the quote, unquote, presenting problems that the parents are bringing them in for. Because, and maybe I do this with all of my clients, and I think, you know, I’ve told you before, I think folks who haven’t worked with kids and teens don’t get that experience of needing to really be creative and flexible and showing up for clients that folks that have only worked for adults and kind of had that professional exterior on. I think there’s there’s such flexibility and richness that I think my whole practice has gotten from when I’ve worked with kids and teens, because it just is such a different experience when you’ve got somebody that’s not really signing up for it, but oftentimes has just so much to say to you about who you are and how you show up for them.
Curt Widhalm 8:16
It’s always nice when we find research that backs up what we’re already doing in practice. And one of the articles that we came across in preparation for this episode is called “Young people’s experience of the therapeutic alliance: A systematic review.” And this is by Dimic, Farrell, Ahern, and Houghton. This is from 2023 in the journal clinic, Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy. And they identified four themes about the therapeutic alliance with teenagers, and one of them is valuable therapists qualities, conditions for the development and maintenance of the therapeutic alliance, therapeutic processes and barriers to the development of the therapeutic alliance. And one of the things that you are already hitting on as one of their key messages is practitioners working with young people should consider important developmental characteristics which impact therapeutic engagement and make them a unique group, particularly defining the boundaries and relationships and the need for independence and autonomy. And I think what we’re both kind of starting to get to is this point around people who work with teenagers, really, really well, tend to know I’m being very clear about what our boundaries are. I’m not trying to make this something that it’s not. I’m not trying to be overly into things that you’re in, just because that can kind of feel threatening to some people. If somebody’s like, all of a sudden, like way overly into the things that I have as my hobbies…
Katie Vernoy 9:57
Yeah.
Curt Widhalm 9:57
It just comes across as being fake. It comes across as as being this is the lingo from our childhoods, being a poser. You know, there’s nothing worse than being a poser. It’s still true. The language has changed, but it just feels inauthentic. And so being able to kind of really talk about, here’s here’s how our relationship works. I can be genuinely interested in what you’re doing without going overboard about it. I can be open to the experiences of what’s it like being a teenager with you, but kind of being like the All right, I don’t need to get into all of this. I don’t need to make it my identity in the same way. And this leads to the last thing that you were saying, which is some of the just stability that comes out of not needing to swing wildly into every little interesting thing that every kid on your caseload is is bringing in. That you are comfortable with who you are as the practitioner that allows for you to be like, Oh, I remember being at the phase in my life where I really started getting into fill in the blank genre. I’m so excited to see you starting to find your own voice in something like this too.
… 11:20
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Katie Vernoy 11:20
It’s interesting, because even as you were talking about swinging wildly, getting, you know, super interested in the stuff that your kid client is seeing. It, it’s not modeling good autonomy or or strength of sense of self, right? And so for me, so much of the work I’ve done, especially, I would say especially with teenage girls, but as also kids of all genders, I think this is, this is helpful, where I just show up as a person that has it figured out a little bit more than them, and helps them with seeing what it would be like to have my own opinion, to express my opinion in a positive way, to be able to have some discourse back and forth, to maybe give them some perspective and advice on adulting at some point, or helping them to sort through how they’re going to make decisions, and give them some feedback on decision making properties, but not tell them what to think or tell them how to do stuff. Like to me, it feels like if I show up as like, Oh, your stuff is so cool, and I’m so into it, and I know so much. And da-da-da-da-da. Like I’m I’m just like you. I think that removes that message of, here is a good test relationship where you can see someone else of a different generation who sees you as a human, having that discourse where I’m grounded and you don’t have to worry about me, you don’t have to worry about what you say and how it’ll impact me. I’ll share it with you if it has an impact, and be able to have that back and forth of like, hey, when you said that thing, you know, that was really funny, but this thing kind of hurt and not be mad and not have a consequence and like, show how to how to have, have all of those different kinds of conversations with an adult that isn’t in your everyday life. And so to me, when people just jump into I’m going to be as cool as possible for my teen clients, and I don’t know if anybody actually is doing this, but like, if that were the case, you would miss all of that rich interpersonal relationship stuff that I think is the best part of doing therapy with young people.
Curt Widhalm 13:40
And going back to the article here, one of the other key takeaways that they talk about is creating that therapeutic atmosphere that’s about safety, mutuality, sense of agency in the in the therapy. And everything that you’re describing here is I’m going to show up predictably, or I’m going to show up and be able to be able to honestly, kind of convey, within the parameters of our relationship, exactly what’s happening. I’m I’m not the same week to week. I find myself with some of my teen clients, self disclosing, just a little bit more for like, application of, like, some of the skills that we might be working on.
Katie Vernoy 14:26
Sure.
Curt Widhalm 14:26
Here’s, here’s a time in my life where I’m doing this. Or even just kind of, like, if you know, there’s something I bike in Los Angeles, sometimes I show up with injuries, like, there’s, there’s, you know, sometimes just kind of like, oh, this is something that I’ve got, that I’m dealing with in my life. This is not the place where I’m going to get overly into it, but I’m dealing with it by taking care of myself. I’m dealing with it, you know, by taking some extra time to kind of step back, or I have planned time that I’m, you know, going to come down from being overly stressed about work things going on in life, and that kind of gives us permission that, like we don’t have to always show up perfectly, and that there’s a way of doing that with grace or doing that with some sincerity, that is very much different than what they might be hearing or receiving messages from their family of origin. That is, you know you have to perform to a certain level, and if we know that you just finished five AP classes. Now it’s time to start preparing immediately for all of your college applications that are due in the fall. There’s just kind of this Go, go, go, need for like, pressure and perfectionism coupled with the peer relationships that are about keeping the right appearances. And it’s not just at school or at events, but also social media and everything that is constantly sort of on that allows for us to really have that real relationship, that that is just like all right, here’s here’s the rules of how we show up. Here’s how you get to kind of test out some of these ideas. You get to test out even, you know, we’re talking about this in seemingly just a sole positive way, but even for some of the teens that continue to fight us and to be negative about the therapy process, that’s just kind of like a being able to meet that with a good you’re you’re expressing yourself. Like…
Katie Vernoy 16:38
Yeah.
Curt Widhalm 16:39
I’m, I’m, I respect that you’re bringing in some frustration about this.
Katie Vernoy 16:45
Well, I think even using that as as part of the goal process is like, it’s clear you don’t want to be here, and so I get that, you know, I enjoy spending time with you. I’ll only say that if it’s honest, but I enjoy spending time with you, but if you don’t want to be here, then it sounds like that is your goal. So what, what do your parents need for you to be able to finish therapy? What do they need from you? And can you provide that? And if you can’t provide that, can you negotiate. Like, what is, what is the relationship with your parents or caregivers hold where you can that can be your goal is to finish therapy. And I think some of the clients that I’ve said that to just were shocked, because they were like, well, I thought you would get offended. Or sometimes they don’t even say this out loud, but like they they feel like, if they can just push back hard enough that that, as a therapist, I would treat, treat them the way I would treat that all the other adults have treated them, which is, well, if you’re going to be rude to me, if you’re going to not, if you’re not going to try, even try, then I give up. And it’s like, no, you know, I get paid the same whether you make goals or not. I get paid the same if you, you know, stay in therapy for a long time, or if you graduate and someone else comes into my room. So I’m cool hanging with you. How do you how do you want to, how do you want to make the best use of this? And I think, before I forget, I want to mention something that I was thinking about when you were talking about, like the five AP tests and, you know, all that kind of stuff. I think that there’s the the interesting juxtaposition of I worked with folks. Some of them would have had AP tests, but some of them were, you know, when I was working with teen boys on probation, most of them were in gangs or gang adjacent. And so part of it was also being the person from outside that environment, too. And so it doesn’t have to be this, like high pressure, high paid, you know, like private practice, even to get there where it’s like, I can come in as a voice outside of your cultural context, your family context, your community context, and be like, hey, you know, I need to have an awareness of what’s going on, and I need to kind of educate myself and/or help the client to give me enough information that I can be, you know, at least relevant to their experience. But I can also say, yeah, that’s how your life is set up, the five AP classes or having two gunshot wounds at 17. But let’s think about what else is possible in the world, and how do you make choices on how you’re going to build your life when it’s your life to build, right, whatever it is. And so I think it’s it’s so interesting to be that that kind of, kind of almost parachuting in from outside of their kind of experience that they’re locked into to be a different voice. Because I think it’s almost shocking sometimes, how how indoctrinated almost teens can be from what they’ve been told by parents, friends, peers, teachers, caregivers of some sort, like it just it feels like they haven’t been even talked to as a human with the ability to make choices for themselves, have their own motivations or own opinions, you know.
Curt Widhalm 20:07
When I was doing my pre license work, and for a few years after, when I was working in the public schools in Los Angeles Unified, I got sent to a lot of schools in various parts of the city, and was working with some of the same clients that you’re describing here. And that mutuality piece of it was really the key to like, I know who I am. I have an idea about what it is that we’re going to be doing and giving kind of the permission to enter into that relationship together, and knowing that that’s going to get tested by teens from any background, like, Wait, you’re an adult who’s showing up different in my life, and I’m really going to just test out. Like, you know, I’ve had parents be like, I will totally listen to you. I will, you know, I always bring up the you know, things that my parents would tell me, like, when I was a teenager, like, Oh, if you if you ever find yourself, you know, at a party where there’s, you know, alcohol or drugs going on, then you know, you can call us. You can trust us. And I remember being a teenager and being like, I don’t think so. I don’t think I can trust you. And so there’s, you know, kind of that, like, you’ve got to bring that genuine like, all right, you’re going to test, you’re going to test things out in here, and you’re going to, and you might not even explicitly say it, but you, as the therapist, recognize like, Oh, that’s a little test of the boundaries here. That’s a little bit are, are we going through a process that really just helps us to then talk about what’s happening in our relationship in a way that is safe?
Katie Vernoy 21:57
Yeah.
Curt Widhalm 21:58
You know, it’s not immediately jumping to the consequences. It’s not immediately jumping through, you know, like, all right, I have to discipline you. It’s more of like a wait, help me understand where that’s coming from.
Katie Vernoy 22:14
Yeah. Well, I think it also shows I’m, I’m genuinely interested to figure you out. Because I think a lot of folks don’t go to that. They go to, well, that’s not and here’s my that’s not cool. Here’s my boundary. Like, let me push back and to say, Huh, tell me where that’s coming from. Where did that, you know, what are you trying to do with that? What are the what is, what are your goals here? You know, I think it’s such a different way that a lot of kids don’t have, because many adults are tied to the roles of disciplinarian in some way, right? They have classroom management, or they have other kids in the household, or whatever it is where it’s like, I can’t just let this kid slide.
Curt Widhalm 23:01
Well, and…
Katie Vernoy 23:02
And we can let them slide. We can just be like, All right, this is just fodder for the conversation.
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Curt Widhalm 23:06
The way that that ends up showing up for a lot of the teen guys who show up in sessions with me now is they’re not getting these clearly defined like, here’s how relationships work from whether it’s their parental figures, but they’re the ones who are coming into sessions talking about Joe Rogan and Andrew Tate and Jordan Peterson, giving these like, here’s rules for how you should be in relationships and how you should be in the world. And so they are getting this information, not from healthy attachment figures. They’re getting it from influencers and podcasters and however you want to classify that group of people that I just named. But what works and what’s attractive about those people are the same principles that we can bring to the relationships that we have, which is, let’s define what is the relationship between us. Let’s make the implicit explicit.
Katie Vernoy 24:10
Yeah.
Curt Widhalm 24:10
And then we can talk about, is this actually working or not? It’s the evaluative piece that we’re handing over the reins to the teenagers. It’s all right, how is this working out? What’s your opinion? What’s your feelings on things? How would you like to try things differently? Plop. Here’s the communication skill that I can teach you to advocate for for yourself on this. If you’re having a hard time identifying that, here’s the emotional intelligence skill that I can teach you to be able to kind of evaluate what you’re feeling and sitting in kind of the uncertainty of making your own decisions. That’s the part that really helps foster the relationship, and unfortunately, the Andrew Tates and the Joe Rogans and those are the ones leading a lot of these conversations for this demographic of our clients. And in some ways, they do it better than us, and it’s more just available, and that’s why we have to take that step into kind of our therapeutic relationships working with these clients is just like, you know, let’s talk about how relationships work. Not in a I’m going to teach you, but here’s what’s actually happening, and we can talk about it, what’s happening between you and me in a way that makes that implicit explicit.
Katie Vernoy 25:36
There’s been a lot of influencers, influential media sources, I think for a lot of teens. And I think about, like, fashion magazines, for some kids, and messaging that has now gone on to, you know, I don’t know who those influencers are now, but like people speaking, so I think there’s a specific concern with the Andrew Tate and Joe Rogan, but I think this is something that is universal for all genders, because there’s so many people teaching these things. And I find what’s super helpful in the conversations that I’m having, even with you know, my 20 somethings that are kind of more adulting clients, is kind of what I talk about them, is trying to help them learn some critical thinking around what they’re consuming. And I think we’ve talked about this in other episodes we’ll so we’ll link to them in the show notes. But it’s something where if I show that I am very much behind you making your own decisions, and part of that is critically thinking about the content you’re consuming, critically thinking about the decisions that your parents or caregivers are making for you, looking at how you want to set up your life, I have your back in a different way than someone just telling you what to do, right. Like, I’m trying to get you to a place that you feel aligned with your goals, your values, your morals, whatever it is. And I think you use different words for different kids, but, but it’s, it’s something where the the challenge in that, and having that as your stance can show up when other people enter the room, whether it’s the parents or caregivers coming back in, or who or whatever family configuration might show up. There is this part of the relationship where you have to navigate both the parents, who are most likely the ones who are paying for therapy and pushing the issue, and your client who is someone that you’ve shown that you care who they are. You want to use your relationship as a testing ground. You want to give them opportunity to make decisions and learn about how they interact with the world and all of those things. And then all of a sudden, the parents come in and bring that other dynamic in. And so I’m sure we’ll do a whole other episode on family therapy, and we have some of those that we’ll link in the show notes, but there’s this part in that relationship where being able to show up as that same person who has the kid’s back, but isn’t pissing off the parents or caregivers, I think, is really important. And so I don’t know if you have things to say about that, but I found for myself it was it was really trying to walk that line of being another adult in the room that was bolstering the kid in this relationship, and trying to shift the dynamic gently enough that the parents or caregivers weren’t going to pull them from treatment.
Curt Widhalm 28:45
As you’re talking I’m thinking about the episode that we largely focused on William Perry’s model of like ethical development, and particularly around the points where it goes from people wanting to find the right answer or the right person to follow, and more into being able to deal with the feelings of having to come up with kind of their own ideas, and being able to test those out. And it’s easy in the context of this episode to think of that solely about what we’re trying to get teenagers to do. But when you start talking about their family, you also have to consider about the family having to deal with some of those same feelings. And this is also you as the therapist, having to deal with your own feelings about this as well.
Katie Vernoy 29:34
Yeah.
Curt Widhalm 29:34
And this is, you know, kind of that development around like, well, which theory am I going to be working with? I’m shifting from individual work with the kid to now, dealing with family work on this, and being able to have to deal with all of the overwhelm that comes with that. And then you might be like, Well, what does my supervisor tell me to do, or even the frustration around listening to a half an hour episode of Curt and Katie, and I still don’t have all of the right answers for this. It comes down to being able to be comfortable with yourself with some of the changing information. And this is ultimately what I see ends up working with teenagers in the situation where you’re bringing their family back in, is it’s being able to not be so shaken up one way or the other to, you know, oh, now I’ve got to take this big swing to the parent side of thing, or I’m going to overly defend the child side of things. And a lot of this comes from being able to structure your therapy from the very beginning as far as, here’s what my role is, here’s how I’m going to show up. I mean, it’s back to a lot of those very basic therapeutic alliance kinds of things. Here, here’s what our goals are. But it’s not having the imposter syndrome that shows up of like, Oh, now something has changed and it’s unpredictable. It’s the Okay, something has changed, and I don’t need to rush into fix things unless it’s an absolute emergency, and I’ve already outlined what I’m going to do in those absolute emergency situations.
Katie Vernoy 31:15
Yes, and I think that there’s the emotional component for the therapist and potentially the teen client that needs to be addressed each time there’s a potential for that shift to happen, and so that the kid gets: you still have my back, you still see me as a human, and you may have to join with my parents. Obviously, you wouldn’t say that to the kid, but you know, you have to connect with my parents so that they can join this conversation with all of us. And so I feel like there’s, maybe there’s a whole maybe we just need to do a whole different episode on family and collaterals and that kind of stuff so that we can talk through that more, but to me, it’s about: I’m going to be the same base human in each interaction I have with you as a kiddo or about you as a kiddo, whether it’s at school or with with caregivers or whatever. And I’m going to be as transparent and genuine as I can be with you. I may try to upset the apple cart a little bit, if you’re, you know, trying to create old dynamics with me, whether it’s taking care of me or treating me like, you know, this horrible authority figure, or whatever. I’m going to try to shift that to a healthier relationship. So we do have a good ground to practice what healthy relationships look like. But it’s something where you can trust that I’m in this with you, for you, and I’m going to do the best that I can, and if I have messed it up, I am going to empower you to have language to tell me that I’ve messed it up and that we can work on it together.
Curt Widhalm 33:02
And I think you know, this is maybe what I’ll highlight from this article to maybe wrap up, it’s a really good article. We’ll include it over in our show notes at mtsgpodcast.com to help expand on some of the things we’re talking about. But I really want to highlight that mutuality does not mean balanced, that it’s something where you’ve still got wisdom and you’ve still got know how. And it’s mutuality is being able to bring in respect and balance to the therapy sessions. It’s things like being formally informal. It’s the way that, you know, I typically wear jeans and, you know, I look like a suburban dad in a lot of the sessions. I’m not dressed up in a super overly professional way. I’m not super causual chasing every, you know, fashion style kinds of things. It’s the I’m bringing in a energy that is both we’re here to work, but we’re here to work in a way that makes it not always feel like work, and that’s really finding your comfortability with yourself and how you show up, and being able to kind of have it be a little bit more of, kind of like a jazz song where you go back and forth together, you have kind of a line that you’re, you’re holding together. You’re still the one leading, you’re, you’re still the one who’s kind of bringing that, that line along, but you’re inviting in that energy to have this be we’re doing this together. It’s how you follow through about it. It’s not just saying that.
Katie Vernoy 34:51
I like it.
Curt Widhalm 34:54
As I said, you can find our show notes over at mtsgpodcast.com. Follow us on our social media. Join our Facebook group, the Modern Therapist Group, to continue on with this discussion, and until next time, I’m Curt Widhalm with Katie Vernoy.
… 35:07
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