INITIATING THERAPY WITH ADOLESCENTS

The most critical mental health problem in the statewide community served by the Utah Child Guidance Center is that of the early adolescent child with socially disturbing behavior. The authors presented their experience with the problems of understanding and treating early adolescents referred to the Child Guidance Center. The article discussed the belief that stereotyping of adolescents is detrimental to community understanding and to sound psychiatric diagnosis and treatment, and propose that the emphasis in discussing storm and stress among adolescents should be more on their participation in modern urban society than on the distinctive characteristics of their age-grade period. Important discrepancies between the adolescent patient's and the therapist's approach to the treatment situation were pointed out, and it was suggested that the relationship in the initial stages must be real rather than symbolic. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved)