#1 technique to get teen clients on your side in adolescent counselling.
Disclaimer: This newsletter provides general advice for educational and entertainment purposes only, it is not intended to be professional therapeutic or medical advice. Please speak with a registered mental health professional or book a session here to receive professional support.
Hey - This blog post is from my professional newsletter.
The Professional Cocoon is for fellow professionals working with young people, every fortnight I share my latest tips and insights for you to use in your practice with young people this week.
Only 2 weeks until my next Masterclass!
I run an intimate, small group Masterclass twice a year with a select handful of mental health professionals working with young people.
I’d love to have you join us!
Tuesday, 4th of March 2025 via Zoom
10:00 am - 1:00 pm AEDT - 3 CPD hours (attendance certificate provided!)
✨ Mastering Rapport: Teen Counselling Skills Masterclass ✨
For counsellors, social workers, psychologists and
related professionals working with teens.
Only a few spaces left and I won’t be running this again until the end of the year!
We all want our teen clients to feel comfortable, seen, heard and understood.
We all want our teen clients to receive us as warm, affirming and getting who they really are.
But having good intentions doesn’t guarantee those results.
Informed practice and skills do.
Straight from my prep notes built over years of counselling teens and families…
I know, I know.
Frustrating, isn’t it.
But I have to tell you, after interviewing dozens of teens about what they like/don’t like in therapy..
Coffee only helps me so much.
Because we are adults that they don’t really know, no matter how warm or lovely you are — most teen clients genuinely EXPECT you to take a parental/teacher approach by doing one of the following:
- Talking about the benefits of therapy, goal setting, working on their anxiety and opening up to a stranger.
Talking AT, not talking TO.
- Digging into their presenting issues for therapy (that mum/dad/teacher referred them for and they disagree with)
- Blab on and on about things they don’t really care about
- *insert 1 million directive, close ended questions that are well intentioned but they hate*…
At any point of therapy with teens - the initial session, a particularly hard session, a session where I am drawing blanks on what to say…
My one anchor is to..
Get. On. Their. Level.
When they are stressed, get stressed with them.
When they are frustrated, get frustrated with them.
When they are resistant and don’t want to be in therapy, sit in the mud with them — don’t pull them out of it.
Our own anxiety as therapists drives us to scrounge around trying to find ideas and topics for conversation with our teen clients.
We so very much want to provide them with a warm, accepting safe space to help them grow and heal.
The problem is, we’re presenting these ideas from the wrong place and they are hearing French when we are speaking English.
Which of course leads them to shut down, resist further, feel shame or stop attending sessions.
How do we do this? What is a practical example to help with these tricky sessions?
This is an essential skill that I teach in my Masterclass with roleplaying and live coaching from me and fellow therapists to ensure that we can confidently flip the power dynamics that teens perceive in therapy no matter what we do.
It takes intentional rapport building techniques to communicate in micro and macro ways “i’m with you, it’s all good, and now we are connected — We can get into the real work”.
Therapy with teens is 99% relational, so we need to have a plethora of tools in our toolkit to adjust to each young person and what they’re walking into our rooms with.
I’ve created my ✨ Mastering Rapport: Teen Counselling Skills Masterclass ✨ to provide a space for my fellow professionals to dig deep into skills, approaches and techniques that really work with adolescents.
I’d love to have you join us in 3 weeks time to build expert rapport building skills and navigate complex teen issues such as caregiver involvement, social media, bullying and antisocial behaviours.
Tuesday, 4th of March 2025 via Zoom
10:00 am - 1:00 pm AEDT - 3 CPD hours (attendance certificate provided!)
Through 3 hours of case studies, 1-1 coaching and specialised training,
you will leave with:
⭐ Rapport building strategies to implement with resistant clients straight away
⭐ Insight into the developmental and neurobiological reasons for teen behaviour and mental health issues
⭐ Strategies to navigate challenging therapeutic issues unique to teens such as drug use, social media use and bullying
⭐ Peer supervision and connection with like-minded professionals due to the intimate, close group format
I’m Ellie.
Bachelor of Arts (Psych.), Master of Counselling
I am a specialist in adolescent therapy, after specialising in both my degrees, clinical placements and further training in adolescent, youth and family therapy. I run Professional Development trainings and workshops for fellow therapists working with teen counselling.
I specialise in Youth Trauma and Grief, with comprehensive additional training in family therapy, child and adolescent counselling, supervised by Sydney's leading family and child therapists and organisations.
I now run an online practice where I see clients, create content and workshops, as well as educate fellow professionals in adolescent counselling through professional development trainings and lecturing in adult tertiary education.
Have a qu or want to chat? I’d love to connect!
Connect on linkedin or send me an email
