Teen Mental Health
Mental Health > Teen Mental Health
Most of us reading this will attest to the fact that the knowledge and care facilities of and for teen mental health when we were children were quite different. In fact, so were the attitudes toward teen mental health.
When a teen got “in trouble,” for instance, he or she might have been considered intentionally doing so to get on someone’s nerves. It wasn’t thought that maybe the person had a biochemical imbalance, that he or she might have desperate psychological shortcomings that a sufficiently equipped facility might provide for. It wasn’t thought that teen mental health treatment was preferable over the belt or the stick—or over being grounded or sent to one’s room and denied attention and affection.
“What are you, mental?” was a favorite in my household, and they didn’t mean I was mentally superior, was overusing my mental capaciousness, or was especially gifted—though with the modern miracles of teen mental health I have experienced over the last six years I would wager they did mean I was mentally beyond what they could comprehend.
But rest assured, the days of downplaying a teen’s mental health needs—because he/she is “only a teen with an attitude”--are behind us, and adolescent girl power (and boy power) are equalized and acknowledged, hormonal imbalances are considered, social and peer pressures are looked into, and the psychology of our postmodern culture is investigated, regardless of how young, how misbehaved, or how complex the need for mental health counseling information for teens—which is, by the way, available online (in many formats—on teen-run sites, in teen-specific chats, on psych boards), listed in phone books under state services, and advertised (and acknowledged as important) in counties and boroughs and townships worldwide. And they are saving lives, daily.
Do not be freaked or discouraged by some pamphlet or online descriptions. True, you must thoroughly check out and scrutinize any facility or services that promote how they are “boot camps for kids/teens”, with leaders who define teens and teen mental health problems as behavioral and attitude problems. (Ignore and avoid boot camps that have a history of harming/abusing teens!) But some teen mental health facilities that are instrumental in helping with teen issues and illnesses such as depression (the number one cause of teen suicides), ADHD, Bipolar Disorder, and other debilitating and mood and behavior altering illnesses might inadvertently define their offerings as intended for “persons with serious mental illnesses” (regardless of age), for example.
That is, some may use creepy feeling severe language that is merely clinical jargon, which might cause you to flinch and shy away from getting help (if you are a teen) or reflect back to when you were a kid (if you are a parent or guardian of a teen) and a teen was “just having trouble” because he was a “typical teen” (whatever that means) or because she was “just being spoiled and difficult.” That was then. Now, teens and their mental health concerns and problems are considered as vitally needful as adults, whom they will grow to be like in many, many ways.