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Counselling for Adolescents

Adolescence can be full of vibrancy, big dreams, new opportunities and developing inner strengths. Adolescence also comes with a particular set of challenges.

Paul provides essential support for struggling adolescents to engage with their lives in meaningful and healthy ways. They have parented children through adolescence into adulthood. Paul has extensive experience working with adolescents having worked with adolescents for over 25 years.

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A message for Teens 13 - 17

Hopefully your teen years will be filled with great experiences, fun, joy and fulfilment. However, you may find being a teenager really difficult. In fact, the teen years may prove to be the most complicated and challenging time in your life.

You might experience: friction within the family, school pressures, difficulties with friends and peers, a feeling of being suppressed or restricted or lonely, misunderstood, lost, confusion about emerging sexual expression, not knowing what to do after you leave school, feelings of not being valued or not being seen or heard, teen pregnancy and much more.

You could experience really difficult mental and emotional concerns too, such as: depression, anxiety, self harm, suicidal idiation, identity crisis and being afraid of your darkest places. If any of this sounds familiar to you, don’t despair, instead reach out. We all need help at times.

I am a Counsellor who specialises in working with teenagers. I am here to support you. I want you to know that I fully respect that your life is yours and I want to honour what you believe is best for you. I’m not here to tell you what to do, rather to help you navigate your own life, to embrace your strengths, celebrate your achievements and to help you get beyond or better manage the things that are challenging.
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A message for Young Adults 18-24

Hopefully your teen years will be filled with great experiences, fun, joy and fulfilment. However, you may find being a teenager really difficult. In fact, the teen years may prove to be the most complicated and challenging time in your life.

You might experience: friction within the family, school pressures, difficulties with friends and peers, a feeling of being suppressed or restricted or lonely, misunderstood, lost, confusion about emerging sexual expression, not knowing what to do after you leave school, feelings of not being valued or not being seen or heard, teen pregnancy and much more.

You could experience really difficult mental and emotional concerns too, such as: depression, anxiety, self harm, suicidal idiation, identity crisis and being afraid of your darkest places. If any of this sounds familiar to you, don’t despair, instead reach out. We all need help at times.

I am a Counsellor who specialises in working with teenagers. I am here to support you. I want you to know that I fully respect that your life is yours and I want to honour what you believe is best for you. I’m not here to tell you what to do, rather to help you navigate your own life, to embrace your strengths, celebrate your achievements and to help you get beyond or better manage the things that are challenging.
read more...

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About Adolescents

Everything is in a State of Flux During Adolescence

Adolescence is defined as the period in one's life where we transition from the confluence of childhood into the self-reliance of adulthood. The point at which adolescence begins and ends is ambiguous; however, adolescence is now being recognised as a longer process than what we once thought, starting in the preeteens and continuing well into our mid twenties, if not longer.

The transition from childhood into adulthood is massive. The defining theme of adolescence is change. Everything is in a state of flux for the adolescent, including their body, brains, hormonal balance, life space, perceptions, understandings, likes, dislikes and world view. Adolescence is literally an existential shift in the individual's sense of self and how they view and engage with their world. Such profound change naturally contains experiences of instability, insecurity and overwhelm

To understand the nature of adolescence, we have to understand the impacts of substantive change. We gain a sense of stability in our lives when there are things that feel solid or reliable to us. For an adult, creating a stable life might include: owning a home, having secure work which provides a secure wage, a good reliable car, trusted friends, a healthy relationship with a partner, marriage, and so forth. In contrast, change often causes us to have a sense of instability, for example when we unexpectedly have to move from our homes, lose a job, relationship breakdowns and the like. When we truly understand that adolescence is an embodied experience of continual and unpredictable change, we can easily recognise why adolescence is often a challenging time in life, and why adolescents need our understanding and support.

There is a paradox for the Adolescent, one where they are seeking independence, and yet need support. As such, some adolescents can be reluctant to engage in therapy. Thankfully, through greater awareness around such things as mental health wellness, adolescents seeing a therapist for support is becoming more normalised.

Adolescence does not herald bad news. Adolescence comes with emerging independence, the world becomes bigger and the adolescent’s perception and understanding of the world becomes broader. Adolescence can be full of vibrancy, big dreams, new opportunities and developing inner strengths. Friendships are more complex, offering more depth of contact and there can be immense joy in exploring the shifting nature of one's sense of self.
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