Therapy for Teens Struggling with Anger
Helping Teens Understand, Express, and Manage Anger
Anger is a normal, valuable emotion that everyone experiences. The teenage years are an ideal time to learn how to understand, regulate, and express anger effectively. While it’s normal for teens to experience feelings of anger, parents and teens may be concerned if that anger feels really intense or persistent, difficult to manage, or results in harmful actions or behaviours.
Anger may be expressed externally, such as irritability, escalating quickly, experiencing more conflict or fights, and acting out. But anger can also be a very internal experience which can be trickier to identify; it may show up as shutting down, withdrawing, or freezing up. In either case, struggling with anger can be really distressing to teens and their family.
Developmentally, it makes perfect sense that anger can feel so hard to manage for teens. Adolescence is a time of rapid change and navigating new experiences, challenges and relationships. All the while, strong emotions, a developing brain, and limited experience with coping strategies can make it hard for teens to pause, reflect, and respond in healthy ways.
There may be additional strain added for teens facing unique challenges, mental illness, or major life events. Through therapy, teens can learn to understand their anger and develop healthier ways to express and manage it.
While anger may seem to be the loudest or strongest emotion – anger rarely exists on its own. In fact, it is often the tough outer shell that is protecting some other really vulnerable and tender emotions, like hurt, sadness, anxiety, or fear. In therapy, teens can understand what’s underneath their anger and have a safe place to make sense of their feelings.
As the therapist and teen make sense of the anger, they can come up with strategies to address underlying problems or triggers and work on building skills for emotional awareness, regulation, and communication.
The process may also involve parents, such as through a family therapy session, to help foster greater connection and communication within the family. It’s also common for teens to feel frustrated, ashamed, or angry with themselves for being angry.
Therapists show up non-judgmentally and with compassion, and aim to help teens build a more kind and compassionate relationship with themselves and others. Therapists at the Toronto Counselling Centre for Teens provide general psychotherapy for anger but do not provide anger management courses or court reporting.
To learn more about individual and family therapy, reach out to the team and we’ll be happy to help. Call us at 416-565-4504 for our Bloor and Runnymede location or at 647-296-8441 for our Danforth location. You can also contact us by email at info@counsellingtorontoteens.com. Choose the location that’s most convenient for you — Book now Bloor Runnymede or Book now Danforth Chester.
It’s always the right time to make positive changes in your life.
267 Runnymede Rd,
Toronto, ON, M6S 2Y5
374 Danforth Ave. 2nd Floor
Toronto, ON, M4K 1N8
Monday to Thursday
11am - 8pm
Friday
10am to 7pm
Saturday and Sunday
10am - 6pm
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Stay up to date with blogs, news and resources at the Toronto Counselling Centre for Teens
267 Runnymede Rd,
Toronto, ON, M6S 2Y5
374 Danforth Ave. 2nd Floor
Toronto, ON, M4K 1N8