Treatment Trends & News

happy teen girl waving
Anxiety & Mood Disorders

Our Changing Understanding of the Course and Outcomes for Adolescent Borderline Personality Disorder

What are the latests findings related to adolescent borderline personality and what can a parent do to help their teen? New Insight on Trajectories for Adolescent Borderline Personality Disorder Adolescent borderline personality disorder (BPD) is one of the most challenging mental health disorders we know about. For decades, clinicians avoided diagnosing teens with BPD for fear of misinterpreting typical adolescent turmoil as atypical behavior. They feared pathologizing typical behavior, which

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teen lying on couch covering eyes
Anxiety & Mood Disorders

Teen Panic Disorder: How Adolescents Experience Panic Attacks

Teens With Panic Disorder Describe What They Feel Like We’ve all heard of panic attacks. Many of us have had them. But for those of us who haven’t, it’s not obvious how intense and overwhelming they feel. The phrase itself should tell us how serious they are, but it’s been used so much it’s lost real meaning for most people. Think about it. Panic means uncontrollable fear and anxiety. Attack

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young teen male smiling
Anxiety & Mood Disorders

Treatment of Adolescent Psychiatric Disorders Improves Social Outcomes During Early Adulthood

Early Treatment Helps Later Employment and Social Engagement When a teenager receives a diagnosis for a mental health, behavioral, or addiction disorder, there are several compelling reasons for their parents to seek professional treatment and support to help them address the disorder. First, our 21st century understanding of mental health disorders teaches us that they’re more like physical disorders than we thought during the latter half of the 20th century.

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father talking to teen son
Family & Home Life

Emotion-Focused Parenting Interventions Improve Outcomes After Adolescents Mental Health Treatment Programs

How To Connect to Your Teen After Treatment When your teen receives a diagnosis for a mental health, behavioral, or addiction disorder, your life changes. The first thing you do is find them the best evidence-based care available. Depending on their diagnosis and the severity of the disorder, your teen may receive a referral for: Outpatient/Virtual Outpatient Treatment. This is an entry level of care which typically occurs once or

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teen girl talks with therapist
Parents

Does Wraparound Care Coordination Improve Outcomes in Adolescents with Behavioral Health Problems?

Study Measures Effectiveness of Community Support for Teens With Serious Emotional Disorders We can answer the question posed in the title right away: Yes, wraparound services improve outcomes for teens with behavioral health problems. And there’s one segment of the teenage population wraparound services help most. Before we dive into the data and details provided by a recent study that examined close to three decades of data on wraparound services

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mother next to sad teen
Anxiety & Mood Disorders

Risk of Suicide in BPD Teens with Prior Suicide Attempts

What Increases Risk of Subsequent Suicide Attempts in Teens with BPD? Over the past two years, we’ve published several articles on borderline personality disorder in teens. Our primary objective in all of these articles is to help parents of teens with BPD and teens with BPD learn as much as they can about the disorder. The goal of this knowledge is to support them as they navigate what we frequently

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group of happy teens smiling
Anxiety & Mood Disorders

Is Your Teen Resilient? Can You Train Resilience?

Building Resilience in Adolescents During the Extended Pandemic The past two years have tested us all in ways in which we never could have predicted. We’ve all faced adversity before. Maybe not all of us, but let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that we all have. As adults, we face things like how to pay bills, how to handle workplace difficulties, how to handle challenging friends, how to navigate

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distressed teen lying among mannequins
Anxiety & Mood Disorders

Risk of Suicide in Teens with Borderline Personality Disorder

Treatment for Adolescent Borderline Personality Disorder Can Reduce Symptom Severity Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is one of the most challenging and disruptive mental health disorders humans experience. This is true for the people who develop BPD as well as their friends, families, loved ones, and the mental health professionals who treat them. For decades, members of the psychiatric community thought BPD was undiagnosable in the children and adolescents. This led

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teenager gender dysphoria
Parents

Clinical Validity, Strengths, and Limitations of Tools Used with Adolescents with Gender Dysphoria

Most Tools in Use Are Outdated: New Metrics Needed Over the past twenty years, members of the LGBTQ+ community have become more visible in our society. We see this as a positive development. It reflects a gradual trend towards openness, acceptance, and respect for the way each individual experiences their own identity and determines their own path through life. However, as our society becomes more open toward non-traditional viewpoints and

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parent reading computer screen
Internet & Social Media

Increase in Suicide Deaths among Adolescents: Did Boxed Warnings on Depression Medication Lead to Missed Diagnoses of Serious Depression and Suicide Risk?

Researchers: FDA Warnings Associated With Decreases in Treatment Teen mental health is everywhere in the news right now. There’s one aspect of teen mental health dominating the headlines: the increase in teen suicide risk and suicide deaths. It’s not a new story. Between 2007 and 2018, teen suicide rates increased almost sixty percent. In 2014, suicide became the second leading cause of death for people age 10-24. Alongside these increases

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lgbtq teens in rainbow colors
Parents

LGBTQ-Affirming Care in Teen Inpatient Mental Health Treatment

Why Gender and Cultural Competence is Critical in Mental Health Support In 2004, experts in adolescent mental health published an influential paper that identified nine components common to the most respected and highly regarded adolescent treatment programs in the country. Since then, researchers have re-examined these components and made small additions and changes. But for the most part, the components recognized as essential to top-quality treatment of adolescents for mental

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teen in therapy
Parents

Trends in Inpatient Psychiatric Treatment of Children and Teens Post-Pandemic

Did Pediatric Mental Hospitals Admit More Teens During COVID Than Before COVID? When the coronavirus pandemic arrived in the U.S. in early 2020, very few people knew what to expect. Among experts and laypeople alike, almost no one had any confidence in making long-term projections about what would happen. Here’s a list of the primary questions everyone wanted answers to: How long would it last? How many people would die?

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