Mental Health Challenges in Adolescents & Young Adults: Our Kids Need Help

Written by: Angela Derrick, Ph.D. & Susan McClanahan, Ph.D.

Date Posted: June 2, 2024 1:15 am

Mental Health Challenges in Adolescents & Young Adults: Our Kids Need Help

Chicago Therapists Treat Young Adult Issues and Adolescent Mental Health Challenges

In The Defining Decade, psychologist and author Meg Jay discusses how harmful it is to think about the twenties as a time of “suspended adolescence” or just a time for fun before life challenges get serious. Jay notes that this decade in one’s life is important to lay the foundation for connections, relationships, and experiences that will set someone up to have more choices in their thirties and beyond. She notes that someone who uses the time more casually may not have built enough “identity capital” to have the same choices as their peers. In other words, she encourages 20-somethings to be more proactive about caring for their future selves. As a Chicago Therapist, I provide care for common mental health issues in adolescents and young adults, and this treatment can be the key to building a solid foundation in their twenties.

While reading this book, we found the NYTimes article “Today’s Teenagers: Anxious About Their Futures and Disillusioned by Politicians.” In sum, it identifies factors that have made teenagers and young adults’ lives so complicated in the past several years, including the pandemic, social media, the tense political landscape with politicians who they don’t feel represent them, and growing concerns that their quality of life in the future may not rise to the level of their parents. All these factors have negatively impacted mental health among the youth, individuals aged 13-20. 

It’s a conundrum, isn’t it? As psychologists, what do we do with this information? Kids are struggling more than ever, the political and social landscape has changed in big ways, the world has become less “safe” with the pandemic, and people are more isolated and disconnected. Yet, young people are supposed to enter their twenties, ready to set the stage for the rest of their lives. It’s an enormous task!

Mental Health Risk Factors for Adolescents and Young Adults in Their Twenties

Laying a solid foundation in our twenties for success later in life requires that we deal effectively with the mental health challenges that are so prevalent in teens and young adults. To begin, what are the common risk factors, and how do they contribute to anxiety disorders, behavioral problems, eating disorders, depression, and risk-taking behaviors? These issues commonly begin early. If you or the young people in your life are experiencing any of the following, it may be time to seek outside help. 

• Exposure to adversity: Early exposure can disrupt brain development, compromise the nervous system, and interfere with immune functioning. The more adversity, the more difficulties the young person has to overcome. Some examples of adversity include toxic stress, poverty, and domestic violence, to name a few. Living in a densely populated area like Chicago can magnify these troubles.
• Pressure to conform and difficulty in relationships with peers: Adolescents and young adults are in the process of developing their own beliefs and value systems as well as the corresponding types of behaviors and personal character they would like to exhibit in their lives. Peers can have an enormous influence on all of these points, good, bad, or otherwise. Going against the grain to uphold one’s values can have real social consequences for young people, and the pressure to conform is often overwhelming.
• Exploration of identity issues and gender norms in the current climate of intolerance and fear: Trans folks have been singled out and are currently under attack in many quarters, making life unsafe for them and, by extension, the LGBTQIAI+ community at large. Reproductive rights have been stripped, and attempts to legislate women’s bodies are increasingly intense, with distressing consequences to safety and reproductive health. Young people are grappling with issues of identity during a time when they are also witnessing such discrimination. 
• Media influence: Social media, in particular, can distort reality and set up unrealistic and impossible-to-meet standards. Young people can feel a cognitive dissonance regarding what they see in the media compared to their own lived experiences.
• Quality of home life, harsh parenting, or neglect: If there is dysfunction in the home, such as alcoholism, mental illness, over-control, cold and perfectionistic parenting, religious abuse, abandonment, neglect, a sick parent or relative, or violence of any kind, the children will be impacted and may need help or some sort of intervention to be put on a path to sustained mental health and good coping. 
• Violence (especially sexual violence and bullying): This type of trauma requires help and intervention as soon as possible to survive, recover, and thrive. When not treated, a myriad of adverse mental health outcomes and maladaptive coping mechanisms are possible.
• Stigma, discrimination, lack of representation, exclusion due to minority ethnic backgrounds or other marginalized groups: We are living in a culture that tends towards polarization with systemic issues that are dehumanizing when it comes to marginalized groups. Young people can feel the disparity acutely. There are many layers to be dealt with in therapy to help navigate the inequalities and provide a liberation mindset to overcome the adverse mental health effects of living under these conditions.

If you’ve read this far, you may be feeling the heaviness of these topics. Fortunately, we have hopeful news from here on out. Mental health treatment in adolescents and young adults can yield remarkable results. There is extraordinary support and recovery in a community of professionals who can help and those who will heal alongside you from similar issues. A qualified therapist, along with ancillary community and recovery groups, can provide hope and steady progress. These support systems can specifically supply the tools needed to cope with difficult circumstances and to approach your twenties with openness and a mindset toward growth. 

Specific Benefits of Therapy for Teens and Twenty-Something Young Adults

As therapists, we can play a significant role in helping teens through this time of transition. Many therapists like working with adolescents because their brains are still forming. They are having new experiences and learning about the world. There is so much opportunity to guide them in developing ways of thinking and coping to help them overcome these tough challenges and be ready for their futures. 

If you are a parent specifically wondering how therapy can help your teen and young adult, here are some ideas from Scott Prinz, LPC, a therapist at SpringSource Psychological Center in Chicago, Illinois. Scott lists several targets of therapy, with definitive examples that are relevant in young people’s lives.

A Qualified Therapist Can Help Adolescents and Young Adults:

• To be able to regulate emotions:  The ability to feel disappointed by a loss and talk yourself through it so that you don’t resort to maladaptive behaviors (like using substances) to cope.
• To be able to tolerate distress: The ability to endure challenges without entering into a state of perpetual agitation, using self-soothing techniques to keep the nervous system regulated and the wise mind online.
• To cultivate self-compassion: We often feel like our own harshest critic, constantly scrutinizing and judging our actions and behaviors and spending time comparing ourselves to others. We can learn to incorporate love, patience, and understanding in how we think about ourselves.
• To be able to think with more flexibility: The ability to shift your thinking depending on the environment or situation in which you find yourself—being able to adapt to the many roles that are expected of you.
• To utilize didactic thinking: Being able to observe and address challenges while keeping perspective and not becoming overly emotional. Looking at situations objectively can be helpful, especially when assumptions can form quickly and feel true.
• In being able to engage in perspective taking: Perspective seeking and perspective sharing are interpersonal communication skills that invite people to be on the same page. The combination of being open and vulnerable with active listening fosters connection and understanding between people.
• In identifying values: Core values are the unique principles that make us who we are. They can be a constant in our fast-paced and ever-changing world. Our values give us meaning, purpose, and direction when feeling lost.

As parents, we want to give our kids the best chance to live successful, happy, and healthy lives. The pressures on young people today are unprecedented and require proactive support from a village of people. No one needs to navigate these times alone or is expected to have all the answers. We need each other. As psychologists, we want to emphasize that early intervention can help equip our kids to weather difficulties. Mental health treatment can also provide them with solid, long-lasting coping and interpersonal skills. This sets them up to succeed in transitioning from teens to young twenty-somethings and throughout their lives.

About SpringSource

SpringSource Psychological Center in downtown Chicago and Northbrook, Illinois, is a Leading Provider of Mental Health Treatment for Adolescents and Adults. We Help Individuals, Couples, and Families Heal from  Eating Disorders, Depression, Anxiety, Trauma, Relationship Concerns, and Life Stressors such as Pregnancy and Infertility.

What makes us unique? We were founded in 2020 as a collaborative practice by two Ph.D., licensed clinical psychologists, both well-known for teaching, publishing, and primary research. Dr. Susan McClanahan and Dr. Angela Derrick developed a deep friendship and a shared vision for helping clients heal in an innovative and intuitive psychological environment.

SpringSource is a compassionate practice with two locations in the greater Chicagoland area. We are comprised of a diverse group of talented clinicians carefully selected for their experience in treating eating disorders, anxiety, and depression. With improved quality of life as our goal, we help our clients get back on their feet and lead fulfilling lives free from stigma and shame.

We believe there are many paths to healing and look forward to helping facilitate your individually tailored recovery journey. With offices in downtown Chicago and Northbrook, Illinois, we offer in-person & telehealth support.

Call SpringSource Psychological Center today at 224-202-6260⁠ | info@springsourcecenter.com | We offer free 15-minute initial consultations—schedule here.