Depression in the Older Adolescent

Abstract

Psychotherapy with the older adolescent girls is likely to be strikingly different from psychotherapy with a younger one. I usually use my few minutes of preparation time before one of my early sessions with a younger adolescent girl to summon the energy necessary to deal with the anticipated drives and undirected impulses of the 13- or 14-year-old. But if the next hour is to be spent with a 16- or 17-year-old, I use the time to clear my head for a more intellectual challenge. (Note that there is not a fixed time for the end of the earlier phase of adolescence and the beginning of the later phase; but most often, the shift seems to occur between the ages of 15 and 16.)