Important Topics

Young Adults: How to Exercise your Willpower Muscle!

The greatest challenge many college students face doesn’t have to do with mastering course material, it has to do with managing life. Once a college student leaves home, the predictable structure of life with mom and dad disappears. The student is suddenly faced with a litany of demands, responsibilities and temptations that can seem overwhelming. This can be particularly true of young adults who have struggled with emotional issues, addictions, eating disorders or other compulsive behaviors.

Adoption and Attachment Issues in Young Adults

We now know that a child’s attachment to her mother starts in the womb, so even a child adopted at birth can experience severe attachment disruption later on in life.
An infant’s world changes radically when the biochemical connection to her birth mother is severed. While this can be mitigated by adoption into a loving family, separation from the birth mother can still have an impact. Separation can constitute an actual trauma that is significant enough to drive important developmental changes. Some experts are even entertaining a diagnostic label of “developmental PTSD” for infants or children who experience attachment issues as a result of separation from the birth family.

Your Perfectly Normal, Incredibly Argumentative Young-Adult Child

“Parents are losing credibility with their teens and young adults,” says Hinman. “The assumption that ‘my child should listen to me because I’m a parent’ won’t fly with an 18 year old! Parents have to work constantly to maintain a positive relationship with their children—especially during adolescence and young adulthood—if they hope to have influence when it counts most.”

Best Stress-Management Guru for Young Adults? The Family Dog.

Unlike the family pet, however, there usually isn’t a nap on the horizon for the beleaguered young adult…at least not for a while. It’s only after the constant flood of adrenaline and cortisone have utterly exhausted her that she’s likely to fall asleep. But her sleep will be the fitful, fearful, unproductive sleep that accompanies depression. Many stressed-out young adults are unable to sleep at night and unable to stay awake during the day. The result is often a distressing stew of agitation, irritability, restlessness, argumentativeness, withdrawal, oversleeping, drowsiness and sullenness. Yikes!

PARENTING YOUNG ADULTS: ANGER HAS IT’S PLACE

Many experts agree that the negative effects of anger can be minimized by addressing the emotion honestly. While ranting and raging tend to actually exacerbate, rather than relieve, anger (according to some studies), the healthy expression of anger can actually alleviate it. In fact, the healthy communication of your full range of emotions—including anger—can be a critical part of your difficult young adult’s healing process.

Young Adults: Learning Disabilities and Emotional Problems

Along with the primary effects that may come with learning differences, secondary effects may occur such as low self-esteem, depression, social isolation, anger, low school performance, and so forth. Sometimes these secondary effects mask the primary issue—a learning disability. For instance, an individual being treated for depression may in fact need concentrated therapeutic services focused on non-verbal learning disorder and its impact on their social abilities.

SCREEN ADDICTION AND YOUNG ADULTS

In the past decade, the use and abuse of screen-based technology—smart phones, computers, handheld electronic games, tablets, etcetera—has exploded. In my work with young people in hospitals, residential settings and transitional programs, I have seen an epidemic of screen-based emotional disorders. These disorders typically stem from excessive use leading to isolation, unhealthy relationships, and social and emotional delays, i.e. lack of maturation.

IN A FAMILY CRISIS, TAKING CARE OF YOU IS TAKING CARE OF THEM

If you’ve experienced a mental health emergency in your family and the crisis has effectively been triaged, you’re likely a bit raw, a bit confused, a bit exhausted, maybe a little scared. In word…you’re open! This openness won’t necessarily last. Soon enough the emotional wound will scab and then scar and you’ll have the dangerous luxury of returning to life as usual. Like physical scar tissue, emotional scars can freeze you up and lock you into an awkward position.

TURNING 18: TROUBLED TEEN OR TROUBLED ADULT?

But when emotional and behavioral issues are present, a young adult may not be willing to accept the kind of support that leads to gradual, supported interdependence. She may also feel the need to fight for, rather than gradually embrace, adult responsibilities. In these cases, many parents are faced with the prospect of their emotionally immature young adult’s sudden departure from the home—“when I turn 18 I’m outta here!” If the young person is in a treatment program they may, similarly, threaten to pack their bags and walk. The idea of a woefully unprepared teen being suddenly independent is, of course, terrifying to any caring parent.

Disentangling Enmeshed Parents and Young Adults

The goal in treating enmeshment is to create emotional differentiation. It is a lot like untangling a ball of yarn made up of two or more pieces of yarn. You want the individuals to connect with each other but in a manner that does not inhibit them from thriving individually and in other relationships.

Enmeshment: Symptoms and Causes

A good relational balance involves family members recognizing that they have different emotions and can make independent decisions, while also recognizing that their decisions affect others. In these relationships a parent can see that their daughter is upset and anxious and can even empathize with her, but this does not get the parent into an aroused emotional state in which they feel like they have to fix the emotion (or that which caused the emotion) of their daughter. They empathize and show nurturing concern for their daughter but allow her the emotional space to solve her own problems with their support.

Warning Signs for Teen Depression

If your teen exhibits a combination of several of the following symptoms, she may be suffering from depression or a related problem. If you suspect your child might be suffering from an emotional problem such as chronic depression (dysthymia), major depressive disorder, seasonal affective disorder or any of the several types of depression, alert your mental health provider (preferably one with experience diagnosing and treating teens) immediately.

Adolescent and Young Adult Runaways

Regardless of whether running away is an established habit or a new behavior, adolescents and young adults generally run away either to escape something at home or pursue something—such as drugs, a forbidden relationship, or a sense of belonging in a group—away from home.

First Aid for Parents

These strategies will help you with two critical tasks: learning to take better care of yourself and embracing hope—i.e. knowing that somehow, things will get better.

THE FLIPSIDE

If you’re raising an adolescent, understanding the duality of personality can help you weather their mercurial changes in mood—which is what tends to flip the coin of personality from positive to negative and back. Low self-esteem and down moods can turn sensitivity into depression and passion into anger. Knowing the other side of whatever negative personality trait your adolescent is exhibiting can help you encourage the positive expression of those very same traits.

EXTREME…MODERATION

Your best avenue for mitigating the hazards associated with your young adult’s appetite for extreme behavior is to create a home environment that favors the kind of balance families in so-called blue zones enjoy.

How to “Do” Therapy: 8 Tips

It’s the nature of psychotherapy for the patient or client to “show up” and initiate topics, set the initial direction, and open up. But that can be very difficult, especially if therapy is new to you or if trust is one of the issues you’re going to therapy to address. The question of how to “do” therapy is further complicated by the fact that there are many different therapeutic techniques, modalities, and styles out there, each one requiring a different type and level of patient involvement.

SCREEN TIME: TOO MUCH OF A (DEBATABLY) GOOD THING

Science is finally confirming with what astute parents have known for decades: staring at a screen isn’t good for you.  The proliferation of screen-based technologies has led, not surprisingly, to an increase in our use of those technologies.   A study by Kaiser Family Foundation finds that the amount of time young people spend in front [...]

UNDER THE RADAR: FEMALE ADHD

Adolescent girls and young women are often misdiagnosed as having primarily a depressive or anxiety disorder when the underlying problem is a long-term struggle with ADHD. In addition to presenting subtle or easily misinterpreted symptoms, adolescent girls and young women with ADHS may go undiagnosed for other reasons as well. Females may work harder than males to hide academic difficulties. As part of their efforts to please, bright girls may work very hard and successfully to compensate for their ADHD, delaying the identification of the disorder until academic or work challenges reach a point where the ADHD becomes disabling. Sometimes this does not occur until adolescence or young adulthood.

Socially Contagious Behaviors

It may be useful to understand that contagious behaviors are passed in much the same way as contagious illnesses—they are passed from one person to another through exposure. When we know that someone is carrying a contagious disease, we remind our family members of the risks of exposure, we give them tips regarding how to avoid infection, and—when necessary—we remove them from contact with the contagious person(s) or circumstances.

Autistic Spectrum Disorders

When selecting a treatment option for child or teen with ASD, then, it is critical to ensure that the treatment team has experience, training and success working with this disorder.

“Legal” by Design: Easily Accessed Intoxicants

While parents, teachers, and law enforcement officers focus their attention on illegal drugs and alcohol, young people are finding ways to get high that, despite being legal, may pose risks equal to or greater than those of illegal drugs and alcohol.

“Legal” Drugs that Teens Use

Part one of a two-part series on easily accessed substances frequently abused by teens and young adults. Most of us can probably list many of the major controlled substances and other intoxicants that are legally regulated.  We know that various of these substances have surged in popularity at different times—LSD in the 60’s, cocaine in [...]

MAKING THE MOST OF TREATMENT

Some young adults choose to go to treatment because they really want help making their way into the challenges of young adulthood. Some, though, feel only partially in agreement with the decision to go to treatment. They may, for instance, have been presented with limited options that sort of forced the decision—like “you can go to treatment or you’re out of the house and on your own.” Not much of a choice.

HOW TO SURVIVE YOUR CHILD’S TREATMENT EXPERIENCE

If your child is new to treatment, you’re likely left with some confusing feelings. Suddenly, your house may seem unnervingly quiet. You may feel ambivalent or guilty. You may feel profound relief. You may finally have the space you’ve needed to feel incredible grief. There may be concerns over finances or other family members finding out about your family’s difficulties. It’s never easy to send your child away, especially when you’ve spent the previous months or years in a state of alarm and crisis.