Adolescent Configuration Styles, Parenting and Psychotherapy

"This book provides psychotherapists with theoretical understanding and practical application involving parental intervention as they engage in the frequently directionless and bewildering experience of therapy with the teenager. Starrs presents a contemporary understanding of adolescence, offering experience-near descriptions of the modern-day teenager. Her book presents an in-depth analysis of adolescent processes, demonstrating a predictability of feelings, thoughts, and behaviours depending on how the adolescent is situated within their lifespace. It offers a relational methodology presented through the lens of adolescent configuration styles, outlining how different presenting styles among teenage clients requires dramatically different psychotherapeutic strategy and their respective practical application techniques. Additional topics covered include developmental dynamics and challenges; the adolescent brain and how it is shaped and re-shaped; modes of creative adjustment in adolescence; establishing contact with the client; assessment; and parental involvement in therapy. This highly readable, original and innovative text provides a contemporary understanding of adolescence for psychotherapists and other allied professionals working with this age group, and even parents"--