Adolescence is a very unique period that functions as a littoral between childhood and the adult years. A littoral where these territories crash, mix and interlace, lengthening and shortening to the sway of changing humors. When it arrives, it takes everybody by surprise: the children, who suddenly find themselves suspended between two contradictory logics and the parents, who one day wake up to find a stranger in their home.

 

For the teenagers, it is a time of much reflection and many contradictions. The belonging and welcome some find in their groups of friends or schoolmates contrast with the solitude and isolation of others. The body, desire and their own image make themselves deafeningly present and require of them an unwonted effort to construct an identity. At the same time, the parents need to calculate their responses to these changes, orienting their children and making an effort to interpret their silences, their words and their sometimes turbulent acts. To interpret them, so as to distinguish between the inconstancies and inconsistencies of adolescence and preoccupying states of mind or risky behaviors.

 

The space I offer teenagers is confidential, to treat the subjects they are interested in or are unsettled by. Nevertheless, I keep parents informed of any serious or worrying situation and in some cases we maintain occasional interviews.

 

Motives for consultation: anxiety, panic or anguish; difficulty in communicating or interacting with other people; sadness, mourning or apathy; aggressiveness; reckless behaviors; addictive behaviors; eating anomalies; insomnia; events that impact the teenager’s stability and wellbeing or that of their family; school failure; discomfort with their body, their identity choices or their peers.

 

If necessary, I can coordinate with the schools.