Are teen clients entitled to confidentiality? How should therapists discuss confidentiality with their teen clients? What’s the therapist’s role when a teen client tells them they’re going to do something risky—say, sneak out of the house, use drugs or alcohol, or engage in unsafe sex?
Here, therapist Britt Rathbone, who’s spent almost his entire career working with adolescents and teens, gives us the answers, and explains how therapists can teach these clients skills that improve judgment and self-control.
“Indeed, teens are all too familiar with adults reacting emotionally and have a repertoire of well-rehearsed responses of their own to shut them out,” Rathbone writes in his Networker article. “But a calm and curious response is often so unexpected that it quickly engages them in an open discussion.”
Britt Rathbone
Britt Rathbone, LCSW-C, has worked with adolescents and their families in the Washington, DC, metropolitan area for more than 40 years. Recognized by Washingtonian as a top adolescent therapist, he is the founder and director of Capital Youth Services, where he leads a clinical practice specializing in evidence-based care for adolescents and young adults. He trains mental health professionals, teaches graduate students, and presents nationally on adolescent treatment and the application of DBT to young people.
Rathbone is the co-author of Dialectical Behavior Therapy for At-Risk Adolescents; What Works with Teens: A Professional’s Guide to Engaging Authentically with Adolescents to Achieve Lasting Change; and Parenting a Teen Who Has Intense Emotions.
Lauren Dockett
Lauren Dockett, MS, is the senior writer at Psychotherapy Networker. A longtime journalist, journalism lecturer, and book and magazine editor, she’s also a former caseworker taken with the complexity of mental health, who finds the ongoing evolution of the therapy field and its broadening reach an engrossing story. Prior to the Networker, she contributed to many outlets, including The Washington Post, NPR, and Salon. Her books include Facing 30, Sex Talk, and The Deepest Blue. Visit her website at laurendockett.com.
