Every player on a softball team is vital. While the pitcher gets most of the credit for holding their team to zero hits, it was the work of the shortstop who snagged the grounder and threw it to first base to get the out. The right fielder caught the pop fly and third baseman stopped the line drive from slipping into the outfield. The catcher can size up hitters to analyze if they need a curveball or drop-pitch.
However, prior to the game even starting, players get support from coaches who helped them understand their weaknesses and learn skills to manage them.
Just like in softball, an adolescent thrives when they have a team of support. An adolescent with severe behavioral and emotional issues require a collaborative approach so they too can lead a successful and independent life. Equinox Counseling & Wellness Center believes in a home, school, and therapy trifecta to achieve the best possible outcome for adolescents with atypical emotional and mental behaviors requiring intensive treatment.
When Intensive Treatment Is Necessary
It is typical for children to become defiant as they enter their teen years and yearn for independence. A distaste for school is also common as they enter their final years of high school. But when adolescents are chronically absent from school, become aggressive when they don’t get their way, or experience prolonged feelings of sadness and helplessness, adding a therapeutic team can benefit a child’s overall success.
A supportive team can help coach adolescents as they learn skills to navigate their set of struggles.
A supportive team can help coach adolescents as they learn skills to navigate their set of struggles. Intensive treatment for a teen may be necessary when a teen is:
- Struggling with daily routines due to executive functioning deficits
- Refusing to go to school
- Unable to regulate emotions resulting in outbursts or aggressive behavior
- Having a notable drop in grades
- Experiencing intense mood swings
- Chronically fatigued
- Frequently using alcohol, drugs, and technology
- Issues with eating causing excessive weight gain or loss
- Excessively worried and anxious
- Being excessively hostile or has significant difficulty managing anger
- Experienced traumatic events
- Attempting or threatening suicide
- Socially isolated
When problems in the home, school, and community have escalated to such an impactful level that traditional avenues of therapy are no longer providing the necessary support, an intensive treatment program can provide relief to parents, the family, and the struggling teen.
Deconstructing Teen’s Compartmentalization Of Emotions
Parents who are seeking support in how to best help their child and are ready to get to the root cause(s) of their child’s problem rather than focusing on the symptoms and surface level behavior need a collaborative team to achieve success. This requires consistency in their support at school, in the home, and in therapy for teens to avoid unhealthy compartmentalization of 
feelings.
Compartmentalization is a subconscious defense mechanism to avoid mental or physical discomfort from conflicting values, beliefs, or perspectives.
This can be a normal and healthy behavior when trying to balance responsibilities and social norms at home, school, and work. Healthy compartmentalization is when a teen doesn’t let a recent heartbreak interfere with studying for the ACT. It is also understanding appropriate behaviors with friends versus how they behave at church. However, when teens use compartmentalization to resist leaning into tough emotions or are unable to maintain appropriate social boundaries, this can lead to cognitive dissonance in different environments.
Unhealthy compartmentalization can look different for teens at home, school, and therapy making it harder to recognize not only the root of the problem but the problem itself.
Unhealthy compartmentalization can look different for teens at home, school, and therapy making it harder to recognize not only the root of the problem but the problem itself. A teen who is taught to be polite and respectful to authority figures can manipulate their therapist into believing things at school are going well when, in fact, they are still skipping class. Another example is when a teen feels safe expressing their fears and anxieties in therapy but doesn’t feel comfortable communicating with their parents in fear of causing even more tension at home. When parents are not given the tools to help their child succeed and a school is unaware the student needs additional help, it is difficult for therapy alone to work. When professionals and families work together through a collaborative approach, teens can begin to heal.
A Collaborative Approach Leads To Sustainable Success
When parents, school officials, and therapists recognize that environment plays a role in teens behaviors and emotions, they can work together to develop a comprehensive treatment plan for sustainable happiness and 
success. Equinox Counseling & Wellness Center works with struggling teens, their parents, and the school to provide a holistic approach that can lead to a lifetime of independence for the whole family.
We provide parent/guardian coaching and highly supported family involvement so parents have the tools to recognize, understand, and help their struggling teen. Our therapeutic care team provides community-based support through school participation so adolescents feel supported 24/7. We identify and teach solutions and skills for parents, school officials, and the teen that transcend across all relationships, environments, and situations. Equinox Counseling & Wellness Center creates sustainable change by using specialized environments and venues to create enhanced learning and practical application of coping, communication, and problem-solving skills.
