What Black Teens Are Facing
What Black Teens Are Saying
Resistance From Your Teen
What Parents Can Expect
How Long Does Counseling Last?
How To Prepare

Summary of the Culture Black Teens are Navigating

Nearly all of us have experienced a measure of anxiety or depression due to the pandemic we’ve all endured through.   But for Black teens also confronting persistent racism and ever-widening inequities, the current moment we’re in has led to an acute crisis in mental health.  According to the U.S. surgeon general Black teens are more at risk of depression, anxiety and stress due to the pandemic and the recent spotlight on police violence against Black people.   Further research demonstrated that when a group of Black teens viewed traumatic events online – including viral videos of police shootings – they had greater rates of depressive and post-traumatic stress symptoms, including avoidance, numbing, re-experiencing, and hyperarousal.  Suffice it to say for Black teens today,  there’s a long-lingering aftermath of systemic, racialized trauma, that does not merely go away.  

Misdiagnosis also plagues Black teens struggling with mental health as a Black student who’s acting out in class too often faces discipline rather than counseling, and Black teens with more severe mental health issues, such as schizophrenia, are more prone to end up in police custody than in psychiatric care.  Historical structural, institutional, and individual inequities have cultivated a uniquely mistrustful community experience with mental healthcare, characterized by a myriad of disparities including inadequate access to and delivery of care in the health system.  This disparity encourages reluctance and for people to internalize their concerns and creates a cyclical denial of mental health issues – adding context to the need for counseling for Black teens.

Fortunately now more than ever, Black communities are rejecting the weight of historical trauma and moving towards healing and wholeness. Moving through life, especially while parenting, can feel challenging and studies suggest Black youth and their families may be less likely to identify their own mental health symptoms.  Coupling this with the fact that mental disorders increase as teens go from 13 to 18, (according to National Institute of Mental Health)—  it becomes critical in this short window for struggling teens to ‘course correct’ and learn the life long skills that maintain their personal wellness.  The simple truth and fact of the matter is Black teens rely heavily on their caregivers to take the lead on their mental health treatment and I am here to support you and your teen in that effort.

I focus on the experiences and needs of Black teens, a demographic of many different communities with varying strengths, needs, histories, experiences, and perspectives, with culturally responsive and developmentally appropriate professional counseling for Black teens support.

What Black Teens are Saying About How They Feel

The teen years consist of transformative growth and development alongside confusion and pressures.  Visibility is something all teens commonly vie for within their circles and the pressures of social hierarchy are thrusted on their radar at a young age.   

Whether they are dealing with physical body changes, peer pressure in social settings, online profiles, or academic performance in the classroom, teens within these transition years are under constant stress in a balancing act pitting structure and freedom. 

For parents of Black teens, the first step in helping them with mental health issues is to learn to recognize the signs of a possible wellness issue. For example,  Research out of Rutgers University found that Black teens express symptoms of depression differently than other racial teen groups – namely through complaining of interpersonal issues or physical pain.  Thus parents of Black teens should pay close attention if their teen expresses increased concern over relationship or friendship drama, or there is an uptick in complaining of physical discomfort. Any physical pain should be probed with a medical professional, but if a physical problem is ruled out, the complaining can be rooted in mental health issues.   At the end of the day, Black teens are just teens who deserve individual care for their individual journey. The Black experience attached to their journey is just a critical part to understand and acknowledge.  

Data out of Pew Research Center reveals that 7 out of 10 teens, across most gender, racial and socio-economic lines, see mental health as a big problem.  Being socially accepted,  pressure to get good grades, looking attractive to others, and excelling at extracurricular activities were listed as a few of the top stressors causing mental health issues in teens.  

The very most common mental health issues in teens are anxiety, mood, attention, and behavior disorders. Anxiety and mood disorders are 2X to 3X times more prevalent in female teens than in male male teens, although the reverse is true for attention deficit disorder.  

Resistance in Counseling from Your Teen

In counseling, one of the most critical things I do to help your teen not only engage but at deeper levels is offer expressions of support and encouragement even when the teen doesn’t engage at all.  Acceptance, respect, and validation for the teen’s perspective are essentials in teen counseling and contribute to the therapeutic alliance.  By talking about what has happened and is happening in the therapy session itself, as a counselor I am opening the door for your teen to share their view of what is working and what is not and to suggest what I, the counselor, might continue to do or  change to make the sessions more effective.  I support and encourage teens to take responsibility for their wellness and balancing this empowerment collaboratively together, teens are more prone to engage and respond by talking more rather than retreating from participation (Highham et al., 2012).  

Counseling for Black Teens, What Parents Can Expect

As a counselor in session, I keep watchful and creative eye and ear turned to your teen, ready to adjust the conversation in a moment to fit the specific factors impacting your teen at any given time. Processing everything taking place in a session, both verbal and nonverbal communication, is a crucial part of increasing your teen’s engagement with me and the counseling process. 

The therapeutic process takes time and it’s important to understand, mental health issues aren’t cured; they are managed.  For a teen to learn counseling strategies to manage thoughts, emotions, and behaviors, it takes time as few learn these strategies immediately.  This is because the initial sessions are largely focused on building a trusting relationship.  Therefore, parents should be patient and not expect immediate major changes.  It is worth noting and especially true for counseling of Black teens, research over the past 50 years has surfaced one factor — more than any other — is a harbinger of successful treatment:  and that’s the quality of the therapeutic alliance (the relationship between the therapist and the client).

Individual therapy for your teen is not equivalent to family therapy, nor is it the parent’s session. This is the teen’s session. If you the parent would like to communicate issues ahead of time so the I am aware of some things to work on, let me know with a phone call, voicemail, or email ahead of time.

I offer psycho-education so that your the teen has a better understanding of their issues and can build a level of self-awareness. Once there’s more self-awareness, I will teach your teen specific internal counseling strategies, along with external coping skills, to manage emotions more effectively.

I am actually not trying to help your teen be happy all day long; rather, I am trying to help your teen cope with emotions that are disproportionate to events in a more effective manner.  Be mindful, experiencing uncomfortable emotions (disappointment) is a part of life for us all. What’s important is how the teen manages the emotion so they can continue to function in their environment.

When the therapist and teen are working together, the therapist will self-disclose minimally. I won’t impose my values on your teen and I won’t judge yours or your teen’s values.  As therapists we don’t give advice.  What we do is offer pros or cons to situations and help the teen come to their own decisions.   This allows your teen to take more ownership of their treatment, and create tools to make better choices in the future.

To help your teen progress in treatment, I will validate your teen’s feelings, but be aware that validating your teen’s feelings is much different than agreeing with your teen and or their perspective on any situation.  It’s important to realize a teen will not work on their own issues and their role in situations if they don’t feel heard and understood first. Once the teen feels supported by me, I can then confront them and challenge their perceptions and thought distortions.  I can only confront your teen as much as I have supported them.

How Long Does Teen Counseling Last?

Commonly about at minimum about 3 months, however everything depends on the distressing external circumstance. It can also depend on other factors such as  age, desire, commitment level, parental buy-in, and the teen’s ability to learn, retain, and utilize information.

As an example, take a teen with generalized anxiety disorder, combined with a positive support system at home, school, and with friends that has a desire to feel better and seems committed to managing her anxiety.  A scenario like this would be on the shorter end of the treatment timeline.  At the end of the day, me, you, and your teen can work together to establish treatment goals so that your teen’s progress can be measured, and you can track the results of therapy.  

How to Prepare

Your teen might be welcoming to a therapist or possibly resistant to the idea of therapy.  Either way, what’s helpful is to encourage them to view therapy as a collaborative effort. You might start by showing them my website, explaining what I do and how they can help them.  For example, you might say to your teen, “I know you’ve been struggling with your anxiety and this therapist has helped other people find helpful ways to cope.”   Being nervous about speaking with a therapist is perfectly normal, especially if it is their first time.

Sometimes reassuring teens they don’t have to share anything uncomfortable relieves fears and concerns. If they’re not ready to talk about something, they don’t have to—and I won’t force them to. Your teen should know it’s perfectly fine to say, “I don’t know,” or “I don’t want to answer that” as they wish.  It’s a journey, we’ll get there, and knowing that they’re empowered in the therapeutic relationship can be relaxing for a nervous teen.   What’s paramount is that your teen feels safe and supported in the therapeutic journey – there’s no need to rush them.

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