Our Society Makes It Increasingly Hard For Young People To Find Their Way

Young adults in today’s world face immense pressure to perform well in school, get into successful careers, enjoy happy relationships, and live independently. Unfortunately, they also have to face a crippling economy, a bleak job market, and a world where meaningful relationships are increasingly hard to find.

This gap between the expectations our culture prescribes for young people and the reality they’re confronted with is one of the major drivers of the current mental health epidemic. So many young adults’ dreams shatter the moment they enter adulthood. Workplaces turn out to be toxic and low-paying, relationships turn out to be shallow and fleeting, and social circles usually end up dwindling in the post-college world. 

To make matters worse, social media bombards young adults with images and stories of people who’ve lucked into innumerable riches at a young age. This creates a culture of “compare-and-despair” among young adults, leading to feelings of inferiority and low self-esteem.

Little wonder, then, that the need for young adult counseling has grown exponentially in recent years. More and more young people are realizing that the American dream they’ve been sold is not rooted in reality, and that the real work doesn’t concern material success, but inner growth.

Therapy Can Help Young Adults Visualize A Future Of Hope 

It’s okay not to have all the answers. Counseling is a chance to honor wherever you currently find yourself, gain new insights into your journey, and learn to navigate uncertainty with confidence. Working together, you and your therapist will identify healthy coping strategies, explore unresolved emotional wounds, and look at old patterns that are no longer serving you. You’ll have a safe space to share whatever is on your mind without fear of judgment and experience validation and affirmation along the way.

At Attachment & Trauma Therapy, we offer counseling for young adults who are navigating career issues, experiencing anxiety and depression, struggling with a failure to launch, and dealing with relationship issues of all kinds. Our practice has lots of experience working with young adults, and we understand the unique and unprecedented challenges that this population faces. 

Tailoring Our Approach To Young Adult Counseling

Our therapists always tailor therapy so that it’s personalized for each individual. Depending on what works best for you, we may utilize:

• Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) to help you identify maladaptive thought patterns and practice new coping strategies for managing stress

• Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) to teach you practical skills for increasing mindfulness, reducing self-sabotage, tolerating distress, and setting healthy boundaries

• Attachment-Based Therapy to explore attachment wounds from early childhood and look at how they affect your current relationships

• Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) to help you process and resolve distressing memories so that you no longer feel stuck in the past

Throughout our time together, we will collaborate on your goals, focus on your strengths, and help you normalize your experiences so that you don’t feel so alone. Ultimately, what we’re doing is helping you paint a picture of your future self—a self that’s confident, in tune with your emotions, and able to self-regulate effectively even when times are hard.