Why I love specialising in helping teenagers with confidence and self-esteem issues

Hello Positivity has helped me massively on my outlook on life. I’ve noticed a difference with how I think in everyday situations. I’ve learnt how to deal with my negative thoughts and accept myself for who I am and find my self worth.

Emily (age 17)

During my diploma one of the requirements of the course was to produce a portfolio of case studies, about people I had helped through sessions while I was still a student. Out of these case studies, a few of my clients were teenagers, struggling with a mixture of feeling hopeless, anxiety and self-worth issues.  While I get massive job satisfaction from helping all my clients, helping teenagers with confidence and self-esteem issues is one of the areas I am most passionate about.

I think this is partly because when I was younger, I was a teenager with confidence and self-esteem issues, along with struggling with anxiety.  Many people who know me now would find that hard to believe.  As if anything I am a bit too confident and full on ‘love myself’ but it is true.  During my late teens and early 20s I worked on my personal development with a mixture of therapy and popular psychology (self-help) books, as I no longer wanted to be held back by these debilitating feelings.

The reason I get so much satisfaction from working with teenagers is that this is the prime time to help.  They are starting to make their way in the world and if you can help increase confidence and self-esteem, while teaching strategies to reduce anxiety and depression, that will stay with them through to adulthood.

Generally, but particularly in Northern Ireland, we are brought up to not be boastful or to celebrate our achievements. We compare ourselves to others and social media has only exacerbated this. What we see on social media is not real life. We are only seeing the highlights, that ‘perfect’ picture that took the person an hour and 25 shots to get.

As we get older, we are told we should not worry what people think. In reality though, we spend 14 years of our developing lives in an institution where it DOES matter what others think as we are all put into groups… popular, geeky, weird, smart ones. When you are younger its very natural to want to fit in and it can be difficult to find the courage to be our weird and wonderful selves.

I am quite a loud person, I over share (personally not professionally) and say what I think. I am definitely a ‘no airs and graces’ kind of person and not everyone’s cup of tea. However, you know what, for the people who think I am ‘a bit much’ that is completely fine.  These people are not my people. For those who do not mind all the qualities I have described I am also funny, positive, kind, thoughtful, energetic, and up for adventure. To all my friends … ‘you are very welcome’.

This is what I love to get across to my teenage clients – maybe they do not ‘fit in’, or they are surrounded by people who have certain opinions of them.  If they can grow bold in the person that they truly are they will not only be more content and happier but they WILL attract their people. People who will build them up and make them feel good about who they are.  Not anyone who will tear them down behind their backs. One real friend is worth far more than 10 fake friends who over time will diminish their self-esteem.

The human brain is not fully developed until around the age of 25 and it develops from back to front, with the prefrontal cortex ‘thinking brain’ being the last to develop. For this reason teenagers are more responsive to stress. You can read more about this at Lumenlearning.com.

Therefore teaching positive strategies and self-regulation techniques is extremely beneficial at this stage.

I think it is quite normal as a therapist to start a pattern of working with similar clients … a lot of our business comes from word of mouth.  When you help one person for a particular issue you tend to get others come once they hear about it.  I love the energy and the enthusiasm of all my teenage clients, maybe all those qualities I mention previously actually make me more relatable to teenagers and so they came in handy after all.

If you have a teenager with confidence and self-esteem issues. Or maybe they are dealing with anxiety or feelings of hopelessness, feel free to contact me for an informal chat with you and your teen to see if Solution Focused Hypnotherapy and myself could be the right fit for them.