Inside the Teen Therapy Conference: Trauma, Resistance & Sports Culture | Teens No Cap Ep. 44
Teens Uncharted: the PodShow Notes
Hey everybody, welcome back to episode 44 of Teens: No Cap! I’m your host, Charity Chaffee, a licensed mental health counselor in Massachusetts who specializes exclusively in treating teenagers. In this episode, I’m coming to you straight from Pennsylvania after an exciting Day 1 at the Teen Therapy Conference run by Katie Kates May. It's been a long day and I am tired, but I couldn't wait to share my raw, bullet-point notes and biggest takeaways from today's incredible presentations!
Here are some of the game-changing "nuggets of information" from today's experts: Regulation & Safety: Regulation isn't always calm, and ensuring safety is the actual treatment. Before you can get regulation within a teenager, you have to establish regulation with them. Reframing Trauma: Trauma is what happens in the nervous system, not just the incident itself. The Truth About Resistance: Teen resistance is really just a data point, and it is actually a powerful developmental milestone for building autonomy. Student Athletes: A massive 90% of athletes identify their coach as their biggest role model. Unfortunately, sports culture frequently normalizes emotion suppression. High-Conflict Divorce & Policies: When managing high-conflict cases, providers must be brave, because being too risk-averse creates a barrier to competent care. Practice policies are the structure for your practice and are different from consents for treatment. Self-Harm vs. Repetitive Behaviors: Body-focused repetitive behavior should absolutely be assessed, but it is not actually self-harm. Shame & Secrecy: Shame is a relational wound, and secrecy functions as a supportive behavior. If a parent or therapist's response increases a teen's shame, it almost guarantees that their behavior will become more secretive.
We have to remember that teens deserve their own specialized treatment category because they aren't just little adults, and they shouldn't be lumped in with children!
Stay tuned for Part 2 next week after Day 2 of the conference!
#TeenTherapy #MentalHealthCounseling #ParentingTeens #StudentAthletes #TraumaInformed #TeensNoCap #JerriChafee #TherapistTips #MentalHealthAwareness #TeenMentalHealth
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