Working With Teens & Young Adults
My journey working with teens and young adults starts with a personal story. My daughter was diagnosed with Autism when she was 8. She also presented with PDA and refused to leave the house for months, go to school and self harmed. I officially took her out of school and home-ed her for a year, while helping her settle and manage her anxiety. That period of our lives seems a long time ago now but it was extremely stressful for us both and as a single mum with little support I felt very isolated and fearful.
Today I work with teenagers and young adults, helping them work through a range of issues such as bullying, sexuality, identity, stress and anxiety management, self harm and Neurodiversity. I understand firsthand how difficult and challenging it can be for parents living with a child who has mind health problems and often share my own story as to why I changed my career to to be a therapist and work with families and teens. I often thank my daughter for being my inspiration. She is now a beautiful, confident older teenager who has the tools to manage her anxiety day to day and knows and understands herself well. She is off to London shortly to start fashion college. We’ve come a long way since the days of school refusal.
I have a specific approach to working with teens, keeping remote sessions weekly or bi weekly set out over a time frame of 6-8 weeks. Establishing a rapport from the outset is key. I also offer parent feedback after each session.
I believe that children need to be listened and heard. My approach is regular sessions short term and I offer one-off if needed.
I use various techniques and modalities that teens and young adults respond well to in therapeutic setting. Often asking them to do exercises with me on self esteem, confidence and boundaries. I sometimes encourage expression through creativity. art, music, writing stories, scripts, crafting and journalling. I work holistically and if open to it, I teach teens relaxation techniques and mindfulness.
I take a professional interest in working with teens who present with neurodiversity because I know from living with my daughter how challenging day to day it can be. I equip teens with the tools they need to manage and regulate anxiety and sensory issues. I take a gentle approach to guiding teens to be more comfortable with identity and feel more confident about who they are as an emerging personality. I also do role play and reframing exrcises to help them with social skills and boundaries. Sometime visualisation exercises work well too.
“Lulu is a consummate professional in all aspects of her work. She made us feel so relaxed and at ease when working with our daughter at a very stressful time. The tools that Lulu was able to give us have made a massive positive impact not just in the short term but for years to come. I cannot recommend her highly enough.”
“Lulu has been working with my teenage son for several months now and has been tackling some of the challenges he faces both as a teenager and as someone with ASC. She works with him in a holistic way, offering talking therapy as well as workshopping social situations he struggles with and looking at mindfulness and ways to reduce anxiety. My son is always happy to talk to her and often says that "she just gets me". Louise has also very kindly gone the extra mile and spoken to his school and to us on regular occasions, giving us feedback without breaking any confidentiality. I feel much more confident that my son can tackle his issues now that he has her in his corner.”