Therapeutic Intervention for Troubled Teens and Their Families

Today children, teens and young adults struggle with many behavioral, emotional and psychological issues. Their struggles are with adoption, body image, oppositional behavior, academics, drugs, alcohol, social skills and attention deficit, to name a few.

In many cases the issues are fueled by divorce, peers, family conflict or psychiatric problems.

Sometimes the struggles are years in the making, some even the result of pre-natal or early childhood trauma.
A family's first intervention for a struggling child often is psychotherapy, which in our society usually consists of one 45-50 minute session, once per week.
Sometimes the psychotherapy is coupled with medication. Both approaches, either alone or in combination, can be powerfully effective.

The two approaches can also be powerfully ineffective.

Psychotherapy can be ineffective, for example, when the child refuses to engage fully, when the issues are more than "once per week deep" and when environmental factors such as family and peers impede the child's progress.

Medication therapy can be ineffective when the feedback to the prescribing doctor is inaccurate or incomplete (for example, when feedback is not provided regarding a child's behavior in recurring classroom and/or social situations over an extended time period,) or when the child is not compliant with the medication regimen.

When traditional psychotherapy and/or medication therapy are not working--or when the child needs a "wake up call"--but not boot camp--it may be that an intensive therapeutic intervention may be in order.
"Intensive" typically means 24/7; that is to say, some form of residential or in-patient program, the duration of which can range from ten days to twenty four months or longer.
Such interventions are provided by thousands of residential treatment centers, wilderness therapy & outdoor therapy programs, therapeutic & emotional growth boarding schools, young adult transitional living centers, and so on. Not all "programs" share the same high standards.

Some, in fact, enroll inappropriate students simply for the revenue, while others lack high professional standards in what is a largely unregulated environment.

Common to reputable programs is that they are therapy intensive.
Children are observed, counseled, coached and, if need be, medicated in a setting where their behaviors are observed by mental health professionals, support staff, field supervisors and teachers, many of whom have education and training in psychology, social work or counseling, as well as medicine (psychiatry.
) In addition to individual counseling, most intensive therapeutic programs and schools provide group therapy as well. It is not unusual for hikers in the wilderness or students in a therapeutic boarding school to stop "in their tracks" so that an individual or group issue is processed in the moment.

Positive peer culture is another characteristic shared by many therapeutic programs.
For the young people who are on medication while enrolled in such programs, the feedback on the medication's efficacy is thorough.
The feedback is usually developed by a team of professionals who are observing the child's behavior on a daily basis, throughout a range of activities.

There is a mythology, often perpetuated by well-meaning, but ill-advised people that "sending a child away" for an intensive intervention is an "extreme measure.

" We assert this countervailing view: It is the failure to intervene that is harsh. Consider the consequences possible when a family fails to intervene effectively.
A family that fails to make an appropriate intervention potentially places a child at risk for: increased depression self-harm school failure inappropriate behavior family dysfunction failed relationships --and later, failure in life.

These are harsh consequences indeed.

Families, school counselors and mental health professionals are encouraged to seek out a professional intervention consultant to help determine the best possible program(s) for a struggling child or a child at-risk.
These struggling, at-risk youth rarely heal themselves. Often, they need help.
More often, they need lots of help to realize the hope and promise they once held. Far from an "extreme measure," most therapeutic programs offer an opportunity for a life-changing experience--for the child, as well as for the family.