Your teen spends so much time worrying, and now you’re worried about them. Instead of spending their time doing enjoyable things, they’re needlessly worrying about unlikely events or minor issues that they’ve blown up in their minds. You watch your teen struggle with waves of intense emotions, and you long to be able to provide them with some sense of relief.
Overcoming Teen Anxiety: Professional Support at The Center for Anxiety and Behavior Management
When Your Teen’s Anxiety Affects the Whole Family
You see your teen’s panic escalate and wonder how to help them calm their anxious fears. You notice that your teen is more irritable than they used to be and that they choose avoidance over experiencing life. Whatever it is, it’s overwhelming your teen, and something needs to change.
Your teen’s stress level is beginning to impact the rest of the family. You’re afraid to talk about their day with them for fear it will trigger your teen’s anxiety, and even the smallest tasks turn into battles. They avoid people and places that could be good opportunities for them to learn and grow. Lately, your teen’s anxiety is causing you anxiety!
You can tell that they are always uncomfortable. It’s as if their thoughts are racing so much with worry that they can’t control them. You find that they fear the worst in everyday situations, and they can’t sleep at night.
So, here you are, wondering if your teen needs therapy for anxiety.
Often, your teen feels worried, fearful, or panicked. They are struggling with everyday life, and their emotions are getting the better of them.
You truly want your teen to have peace and to be confident in their own skin. You long for them to engage boldly in situations where they now cower in fear. But, you have no idea how to help them overcome the symptoms of anxiety which are causing them distress right now. You never imagined you’d feel as helpless as you do seeing your teen struggle with anxiety. And, you certainly didn’t expect that you’d need to reach out for profession help.
At The Center for Anxiety and Behavior Management, we use evidence-based treatments such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP). These therapies help teens learn to identify anxious thoughts, challenge them, and gradually face their fears in a controlled, supportive environment.
Signs That Your Teen Might Be Struggling with Anxiety
- Behavioral: your teen is irritable, avoids people or places, cries when worried, or seeks reassurance from others that everything will be okay
- Cognitive: your teen has trouble concentrating and/or has racing or unwanted thoughts; your teen assumes that worst-case scenarios are likely to occur
- Mood: your teen often feels worried, dread, or like they are doomed
While professional help is often necessary, there are steps you can take at
home to support your anxious teen:
- Encourage open communication about their feelings
- Help them establish a regular sleep routine
- Promote physical activity and healthy eating habits
- Validating feelings instead of criticizing
- Model healthy coping strategies in your own life
Transforming Lives: The Benefits of Teen Anxiety Support
At The Center for Anxiety and Behavior Management, our comprehensive approach to teen anxiety treatment yields numerous positive outcomes:
- Renewed engagement: Teens rediscover joy in activities and relationships they once avoided.
- Enhanced stress management: Acquiring effective coping strategies helps teens navigate daily challenges without succumbing to anxiety.
- Improved self-confidence: Through targeted interventions, teens develop a stronger sense of self-assurance and resilience.
- Better academic and home life functioning: Tailored techniques enable teens to perform more effectively in school and contribute positively at home.
- Strengthened family bonds: As teens learn to manage their anxiety, families often experience improved communication and increased quality time together.
- Personalized coping tools: Each teen receives a customized set of anxiety management techniques suited to their unique needs and preferences.
- Long-term resilience building: Our program focuses on developing skills that serve teens well beyond therapy, preparing them for future challenges.
- Holistic well-being: Treatment addresses not just anxiety symptoms, but overall mental health, leading to improved sleep, nutrition, and physical activity habits.
Our approach is backed by research and endorsed by leading experts in the field of adolescent mental health. As Dr. Cassandra Farraci, a renowned clinical psychologist, states, “Early intervention with evidence-based therapies can significantly improve outcomes for teens struggling with anxiety.”
When You Seek Support for Teen Anxiety from The Center for Anxiety and Behavior Management
- Your teen will stop avoiding the people and places they once enjoyed
- Your teen will learn to cope with everyday stress without becoming anxious
- You will learn parenting strategies to help your teen have more confidence
- You will learn how to help your teen better function at home and in school
- You and your teen will grow closer together and enjoy spending more time together
The Anxiety Counseling Process
Therapy for teen anxiety is intended to help your teen stop worrying and participate freely in their life. Together, your teen and their therapist will work with scientifically-backed, evidence-based therapies to help them gain control of their inner and outer worlds in more effective ways.
Our unique approach combines science-supported therapy techniques with innovative strategies tailored specifically for teens. We incorporate age-appropriate activities, conversations and real-life scenarios to make therapy engaging and relevant to your teen’s daily experiences.
Therapy for teens with anxiety is based upon helping them to learn to identify their triggers and overcome them in such a way as to be successful in school, family, and peer environments.
Here’s what to expect…
FIRST CONTACT: Free phone consult
Prior to beginning treatment with us, we want to make sure that we are a good fit for your teen’s needs. For this reason, we offer a free 15-minute initial phone consult to learn more about your teen’s current circumstances and to determine if we are the best resource for you. Assuming that we are a good match, you will then schedule an intake session.
WEEK ONE: Intake Session
During this initial 90-minute session, the assigned therapist will meet with you as the parent(s) or guardian(s) to gather background information on your teen and have you fill out rating scales to provide an assessment baseline upon which to build our treatment plan and goals.
WEEK TWO: Teen Intake Session
During this 45- to 60-minute session, the therapist will interview your teen as well as meet with you as the parent(s) to ask any follow-up questions which may be helpful in treatment planning and goal-setting to best meet your teen’s needs.
WEEK THREE: Feedback Session
Now that we’ve thoroughly assessed your teen’s needs, we will meet with you to discuss the diagnoses, identify starting goals, and provide education on the apparent causes and factors which are leading to your teen’s troubling thoughts and behaviors.
WEEK FOUR and Beyond: Teen Anxiety Therapy
At this point, your teen will attend regular weekly therapy sessions. A typical course of treatment calls for 12 to 16 weeks of therapy sessions, but treatment length depends on many factors and, therefore, could require more or less weeks. Additionally, your therapist may determine that you need to come more or less frequently, depending upon your teen’s presenting symptoms.
Together, in each subsequent session, your teen and their therapist will use evidence-based psychotherapy models to help your teen learn to identify and address the challenges they experience because of anxiety. This typically includes the integration of techniques from Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT), Exposure and Response Prevention Therapy (ERP), or other evidence-based modalities.
Each session is designed to help your teen learn to relax and better enjoy the world around them.
TERMINATION: The Final Sessions
As your teen gets closer to their therapy goals, we will develop a plan for successfully transitioning them into a life without weekly therapy. This often means moving sessions from once a week to every other week, to monthly sessions, or to finishing out services completely. We also work with you and your teen to develop a relapse prevention plan at this time. Our goal is for your teen to be able to retain what they’ve worked on and to implement all that they have learned in therapy outside of sessions in their everyday life.
Are we the right providers for you?
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More About The Center for Anxiety and Behavior Management
As a team of licensed therapists, we are experts at teaching you to make the behavioral choices that get you closer to your goals.
We work from an evidence-based perspective. This means that our job is to help you understand your struggles and provide solutions proven to be very effective. Negative thoughts, distressing feelings, and unhelpful behaviors don’t have to be part of your life, and anxiety therapy at The Center for Anxiety and Behavior Management is about changing the way you think, recognizing how your beliefs are holding you back, becoming informed, seeing the world more accurately, and engaging in behaviors that you won’t regret later.
We make it our mission to help you regain control of your life by providing effective strategies supported by science. We are dedicated to being on top of the most recent knowledge and helping you solve problems based on what the research says is effective. It is our passion to educate you on what is and isn’t working in your life so that you can get back in the driver’s seat and take yourself where you want to go.
Who Benefits Most from Anxiety Counseling
Therapy for teens with anxiety is best for those who have begun to avoid anything in life that once made them happy, who refuse to try new things because of fear, dread, or worry, or who frequently need reassurance from others that everything will be okay.
Often, the teen with anxiety thinks there is something wrong with them and that is why they can’t feel at peace. Anxiety counseling can help them to find a sense of mastery and control.
Your teen will benefit from anxiety counseling if:
- They are experiencing racing worrisome thoughts
- They often assume the worst possible future outcome
- They struggle to participate in daily activities
- They aren’t enjoying even the simplest things in life
- They are avoiding people, places, or situations that make them anxious
- They are avoiding new situations and opportunities that will help them grow
- They have trouble falling or staying asleep at night
- They often act out in order to avoid uncomfortable situations
There are certain situations where your teen might not be ready for counseling sessions with us.
These include, but are not limited to:
- Situations where your family’s schedules are too busy to commit to weekly therapy
- Situations where the teen or parent does not want to practice the techniques outside of session
- Situations where parents are not committed to the process
- Situations when teens or parents want a quick fix
If you are currently experiencing any of these issues, we can provide you with appropriate referrals for your level of care.
Sessions are currently held by appointment only Monday – Saturday.
Frequently Asked Questions About Teen Anxiety
There isn’t one specific age when anxiety peaks for all teenagers. Adolescence brings significant changes, including puberty, increased academic expectations, changing friendships and social pressures, and greater independence. Some anxiety during this period is expected. Rather than focusing on a particular age, it’s more important to look at how frequently anxiety is occurring, how intense it is, and whether it is beginning to interfere with school, relationships, activities, sleep, or other areas of daily life.
Hormonal changes during puberty can affect mood, emotions, and how teenagers respond to stress, but anxiety is rarely explained by hormones alone. Anxiety can be influenced by many factors, including genetics, temperament, life experiences, patterns of thinking, environmental stressors, and how a teen has learned to respond to uncomfortable situations. If anxiety is persistent, significant, or interfering with daily functioning, it shouldn’t automatically be dismissed as “just hormones.”
Feeling nervous before an important test, worrying about a friendship, or becoming anxious about a new situation can all be normal. Anxiety becomes more concerning when it is persistent, seems out of proportion to the situation, or begins changing how your teen lives their life. You may notice that they are avoiding school, social situations, activities, driving, presentations, or other things they need or want to do. They may also seek frequent reassurance, have difficulty sleeping, experience physical symptoms, or spend a significant amount of time worrying. When anxiety begins limiting a teenager’s life rather than simply being an uncomfortable part of it, professional support may be helpful.
It’s not unusual for a teenager to be hesitant or resistant to therapy, particularly if they don’t believe there is a problem or feel that someone else is making the decision for them. Try to understand what they are concerned about rather than turning therapy into another source of conflict. It can also help to focus on the specific things that are making life harder for them, rather than simply telling them they need treatment for anxiety. If your teen continues to refuse therapy, parents can still meet with a therapist to better understand the anxiety, learn how their own responses may be affecting it, and develop strategies for supporting their teen without reinforcing avoidance or anxiety.
Yes. Many teenagers can make significant progress through evidence-based therapy without medication. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) helps teens better understand the relationship between their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors and learn more effective ways of responding to anxiety. Exposure-based strategies can also help teens gradually face situations they have been avoiding and learn that they can tolerate anxiety and uncertainty without escaping or relying on safety behaviors. Some teenagers also benefit from medication as part of treatment. Whether medication is appropriate depends on the individual teen and should be discussed with a qualified medical provider.
Our office is conveniently located at 259 Main Street in Chester, NJ, 07930.
Your Next Steps
Your teen can absolutely begin to identify the triggering situations and thoughts associated with your teen’s anxiety
A calm, relaxed, and engaged teen may be a long way off right now, but that doesn’t mean that they can’t learn to cope when things don’t go their way. They just need the support of a caring professional and evidence-based strategies while they figure out how to best manage it all.
Your teen will get the tools that they need to be more successful in new, unfamiliar situations. And, they’ll also develop more positive self-esteem as they engage in more activities and experience success.
Ultimately, your teen will be more carefree and willing to experience what life has to offer. We can help.
Call or text (908) 883-4173 or book an appointment to schedule your 15-minute phone consult to see if we’re a good fit for your teen’s anxiety needs today!
Our Team
Meet our experienced & professional team
Our therapists’ commitment to providing quality treatment and giving you practical, action-oriented strategies are why we are one of the most sought after mental health practices.
