Hello Mother. Hello Father. So you read Hello Muddder, Hello Fadder and now you want to know more. Glad you are back. As a therapist for teens, it's always important when parents collaborate in a teen client's treatment. But it's a confusing situation. For the teenager who is unhappy. For the parents who often have no idea what is going on, what went wrong, or how to help their child.
There are no magic answers. But the role of the therapist is to be that knowledgeable person in assessing the mental health of a teen, and implementing strategies to help that teen regain functioning in all areas of her life; and if she has never had functioning, to help her find it.
And if I wanted to talk to parents about confidentiality in a previous column, in this one I want to address another relevant topic related to teens in therapy. And the purpose—as always—is to help parents understand so that they can be a key support in the teen's life, instead of a crutch or a unwitting saboteur.
Parents sometimes misunderstand the role of a therapist.
Parents will sometimes think that the therapist is a teacher. Teaching the kid how to behave. As if that was the problem: the kid simply didn't know how to behave and if the therapist will explain the rules of behavior to the teen, everything will be just fine.
Yeah, right.
Parents sometimes think the therapist is some sort of rebbetzin, or rabbinical advisor. Like the only reason the teenager has been acting out religiously is only because nobody explained to the teenager that she grew up in a frum home, in a frum community. And once the therapist explains that, it will be so clear to the teenager that she will become perfectl in her religious observance.
Yeah, right.
Yes, I am a frum therapist. Yes, I obviously have values consistent with the frum community. Those values definitely include my belief that Yiddishkeit is beautiful and meaningful, that the Torah life is a gift to a Jew, and that halachah is sacrament. And for any teenager who walks into my doors, my values are in her face with my wig, with my modest dress, and often in how they emerge unconsciously in our sessions.
However, my role of a therapist is not to encourage a child to keep to the religious path. That is a role I leave to the parents, the school, and the various mashpi'im and mentors, rabbanim and rebbetzins in a child's life. And this is why: When a teenager enters therapy, her religious acting out has nothing to do with her religion, but with her unhappiness. As a therapist, I need to address the unhappiness, or any other motivations that are driving her acting-out. Once those issues are alleviated, the acting-out becomes a moot point. In the meantime, of course, the other influences in a child's life, the other positive role models can impress religiosity on her in different effective ways that work collaboratively with the therapy that is focusing on a teenager's mental health.
Most teenager's feel most comfortable within the religious life they grew up in, and if a child's religious development is not thwarted by negative factors such as lack of marital harmony, social cruelty of peers, abuse or trauma, or contact with familial/community religious hypocrisy, then the natural inclination of a person is to grow within the religious parameters of their community.
Although, and I don't want to scare you, I am finding religious acting-out with teens where none of these are true and the teen is simply drawn to the magnetic pull of technology and is sucked in to the abyss of all that is unholy without any specific intent.
But even when that happens, that the lure of the outside world beckons irregardless of any negativity in the child's life, that breach of community/religious boundaries also originates from some unhappiness, despite no evidence of marital disharmony, trauma, or the like—unless the trauma is in the child's perception of life, which is often possible (as in a social injustice that wounds one child that would leave another child perfectly intact).
So, Parent, don't expect me to lecture to your child about the importance of keeping Shabbos or not buying a smart phone or not rolling up her skirt or sleeves when she leaves her home. Because what I will be doing is examining and exploring with your child what unhappiness drives her to think that happiness can be achieved with chillul Shabbos, or with a shorter skirt, or with an iphone when there are thousands of content teenagers without those things.
Therapy addresses the future, and what actions in the present may impact a future the teenager didn't realize she even wants. Or if a teenager cannot even envision a future, therapy gives her tools, the confidence to believe she has one.
Therapy even allows teenager, in a safe environment, to even express terrible thoughts she knows would horrify her parents or teachers of even friends. And often, saying them out loud, giving them voice, also is like a pin to let all the air out of those thoughts, allowing them to deflate, to float away, to become insubstantial in ways that when they were locked up her heart and head they seemed so important and wonderful.
In the same way, parents sometimes think the role of the therapist is to knock some sense into her so she should think the way her parents think. Religiously, or otherwise. To explain to her why she should not fight with her older or younger sister or brother (as if she doesn't know!), why she needs to help at home. Why she should stop moping in her room or explain to her that it's important to make a bigger effort to make friends in her new class, or get involved in her school production.
Parents think the therapist should become the rule-setter. The explainer. The teacher.
But the therapist will fail to reach a teenager, much in the same way the parents, teachers, and older sisters have failed to make her act normal and stop fighting—if she uses the same techniques that have already proven to have failed!
A therapist is a therapist. Nothing more, nothing less. And she uses her skills as a therapist to help the teenager uncover the roots of her unhappiness, to discover her resources talents and strengths; and give her tools to help her find back to emotional health.
Because once that happens, all the other stuff, the symptoms of acting out behaviorally and religiously, no longer have a purpose and will be extinguished.
So, I'm no teacher, but did I teach you anything here?
NOTE: THIS WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN BINAH MAGAZINE'S BI-WEEKLY THERAPY COLUMN THERAPY: A SNEAK PEEK INSIDE
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