Building Rapport With Teens: Intake Activity : Therapy with Teenagers

There are free tools for therapists working with teens here https://www.mypeoplepatterns.com/clin...

Therapy with teens is no joke, this is one of the toughest populations to work with, and I've been doing it for my entire career. Building rapport with teens in therapy can be a challenging task for even the most experienced therapist. A teen client can be a master at putting up resistant barriers while pushing our buttons with 'I don't know' answers, or telling us what we want to hear and side-stepping responsibility. I’ve developed several therapy techniques for teens that I teach my associates and my clinical tea. These help me establish a working alliance with a teen more often than not and are great tools to have in your back pocket. In order for therapy to be effective with adolescents, a trusting relationship must be formed between the therapist and teenager, only once a solid rapport has been built, can change begin to happen.

Most teens enter therapy because an authority figure, like a parent or teacher, told them they must do so. This presents unique challenges to building rapport as they are already somewhat resentful about being there and likely don't trust you as you're 'just another adult'. Any thing you can do to build trust and develop the working alliance is going to be helpful, and you can see some of my other videos on what NOT to do with teens in therapy to avoid those mistakes too!