The most commonly prescribed medication for teens with an opioid use disorder is Buprenorphine. Buprenorphine was approved in 2002 by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for use in medication-assisted treatment (MAT) for adolescents age 16 and over. One qualitative study of more than twenty-thousand teens and young adults in the U.S. showed that buprenorphine […]
Read MoreYour teen is addicted to heroin or other opioids. You’ve been getting lots of advice. Mental health professionals have told you about Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT), 12-Step programs (e.g. Nar-Anon), and adolescent drug rehab centers. You’ve also heard about detoxification (often referred to as detox), and Medication-Assisted Treatment (MAT). For teens […]
Read MoreThe stories about alcohol and drugs we read in the press are almost always negative. For years, news about alcohol and drugs either revolved around celebrities checking in and out of rehab or the next new drug parents needed to know their thrill-seeking teens might try. More recently, the press is all about the opioid […]
Read MoreWhat does painting have to do with mental health? Lots, actually. Art therapy is a popular intervention for those with depression, anxiety, schizophrenia, low self-esteem, trauma, and more. PTSD and other childhood attachment issues like neglect are particularly amenable to art therapy. Many studies analyzing children with PTSD find that the participants in the treatment […]
Read MoreYour teen is getting treatment at a teen rehab center. Now what? While treatment can be challenging, it can be equally difficult for your child to maintain progress after leaving the more supervised and structured elements of a teen rehab center. Your adolescent will be re-exposed to all the stressors in their environments (like their […]
Read MoreWe know you may not really enjoy your time in treatment. It may be the hardest, loneliest, most challenging period in your life. Maybe you’re counting down the days until your discharge. Maybe you’re even counting down the hours, minutes, seconds, nanoseconds, and picoseconds. To that we say, where’d you get such a fancy watch? […]
Read MoreThere’s a little-known fact about recovery from mental health and substance use disorders: the person in treatment is not the only one who changes. A growing body of research shows that achieving and maintaining long-term, sustainable mental health and sobriety is far more likely when members of the immediate family engage in the therapeutic process […]
Read MoreThe transition from alcohol or substance abuse treatment back to home life can be an emotionally charged time for everyone involved. For parents, it’s often a mirror image of the days and weeks immediately preceding treatment. Before you placed your teenager in a residential program, you probably felt a disconcerting and uncomfortable jumble of sadness, […]
Read MoreBreathe. That’s the first and most important thing for you to do – but we won’t include it in our list of five tips, because it’s more than a simple pointer or a random bullet on a clickable list. Think of it as your mantra. Make it the default, bedrock advice you give yourself every […]
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