My son has a mild illness stage fright. He once took a hip-hop class that ended with a performance, and when it was time, he refused to go on stage. Years later, same fear His goal was to join the student council, which meant campaigning, giving a speech in front of his class, and being on stage again. My first move was to suggest an after-school theater program to help build her confidence. He immediately shot it down. I pushed harder: He had friends there, it was basically exposed therapyit will be fun (I said that last part twice, for emphasis, and it even resonated with me). That’s when I caught myself and tried something else. The instinct to push harder is deeply human, and it usually backfires. A teenager resistance to therapy and your trainer often occurs to parents who are trying to support their children. Here’s what works best instead, and obviously, it’s not about doing DBT-A therapy from your kitchen table. It’s about borrowing two ideas that clinicians use in your personal relationship with your teen before therapy is even on the table.
Why do teenagers resist?
Parents often see therapy as an opportunity they wish they had. Teenagers hear something else: you’re the problem, you need to fix it. This reaction is not defiance for its own sake; research on adolescent reactivity shows that it is related to the developmental need to establish autonomy, especially when the decision is forced instead of chosen (Van Petegem et al., 2015). The more a teenager feels cornered, the more they dig. A parent’s natural response is escalation: better arguments, consequences, ultimatums. This reliably creates conflict, and conflicts rarely end with the teenager agreeing to anything.
A different approach: affirmation and dialectics
Dialectical behavior therapy offers two ideas that work well here, even outside of the clinical setting.
Test It means acknowledging your teen’s feelings without necessarily agreeing with their conclusions. You shouldn’t think that therapy is really useless; you just have to admit that it makes no sense to them right now. So, when your teen says that “the therapist feels intrusive,” try saying, “I can see why that feels uncomfortable.” Research on parent-adolescent communication links this type of affirming response with greater emotion openness and less conflict, while invalid responses tend to silence children (Adrian et al., 2019). As defenses soften, curiosity becomes easier: “What do you think therapy is really like?” “Are you worried about what someone said to me?”
Dialectical thinking means having two truths at the same time: You can accept your teenager as they are today and still want something different for them. Parents often fall into an all-or-nothing mindset: either the teen agrees, or the parent gives up. Both/and positions are more workable and less likely to cause the exact resistance you want to avoid.
Three things to try
- Confirm first. Before making your claim, ask about feelings: “Talking about therapy last time brought up strong feelings, are you still there?”
- Ask, don’t tell. Change the statements into questions. “You need to talk to someone” becomes “If you choose, what will the support look like?” Teens are more likely to come to their own conclusions when they are asked, rather than told.
- Be regular. Teenagers read the melody of their parents and body language it is much more than their words. Adolescents with parents who are more relaxed about anxiety tend to show less anxiety themselves and stronger relationships over time (Jones et al., 2014).
Often, something changes before your teen says yes to therapy. As you change the way you listen and respond, the emotional atmosphere at home will change with it: perhaps a little less conflict and a little more trust. You don’t have to declare it. Like them nervous system solved, teenagers are often better able to actually consider what you have to offer rather than just resist.
It also helps to offer more than one way. For example, skills groups may feel less burdensome than “therapy” because they are developed as specific tools with peers facing similar problems. Some parents find success in inviting their teen to “shop” for the right fit, sit in an informational session together, and then return and allow the teen to ask questions. It’s not simple, but it’s doable. This is also a dialectic.
