Youth & Families Flashcards
What is adolescent development?
- A time of opportunity & growth
- Exploring identity/roles
- Risk taking can have long term effects
- Significant life changes
- Emotional upheaval
- Among marginalized groups, vulnerability is compounded by factors such as racism, sexism, homophobia, poverty, street involvement, and social isolation.
What is early adolescence?
11-13
- Adjusting to puberty
- Learning to use new cognitive capacity
- Finding place with peers
What is middle adolescence?
14-16
- Handling sexuality
- Making moral decisions
- Balancing autonomy & accountability
- New relationships with peers
What is late adolescence?
17-19
- Consolidating identity
- Experiencing new levels of intimacy
What is transitional age?
19-25
- Leaving home
- Beginning career
- May begin a family
What is an example of a typical behaviour vs a behaviour that is cause for concern?
Typical: Increased moodiness
Not typical: Intense, painful, long-lasting moods, risky mood dependent behaviour, panic attacks, self-harm, suicidal thinking.
What is happening at the neurological level for the adolescent brain?
- Rerouting neural pathways
- Synaptic reorganization, unused neural pathways eliminated
- Synaptic pruning
- Relational experiences and repetition strengthen the new pathway
- Excitatory neurotransmitters more reactive
What is the orbito-frontal cortex?
The key to emotion regulation.
Maturation dependent on nature of attachment relationship.
What is the amygdala?
The alarm system: Fight, flight, freeze.
Mature at birth.
What are the 4 changes in the brain that transform relationships?
1) More intense emotion
2) Risk and novelty compelling
3) Seeking attachment in peers
4) Creative exploration
What is resiliency?
The ability to cope vs. the adversity and stress faced.
How can you increase resiliency?
- Foster positive connections to caring and competent adults
- Emotion regulation skills
- Increasing positive self-image
- Minimizing risk and stressors
Why is it so hard to engage youth in treatment?
- Not voluntary
- Lack of insight and emotional expression due to developing brain
- Youth are often identified as the “problem” in a family system
- Adolescents are typically viewed as resistant, difficult, irrational
- Belief that adults don’t listen to them
- “I don’t know, I don’t care”
What are some tips to engage adolescents?
- Be genuine
- Be PACEful
- Don’t have the same expectations you would with adults (i.e. attention span)
- Remind them of confidentiality
- Guessing is helpful if done right
- Being creative
- Remember that youth are not a homogeneous group
What is irreverence?
Involves using a matter-of-fact or confrontational tone to discuss subjects that are often not discussed or skirted around.
I.e. DBT style
What is the core assumptions in understanding families?
People are the product of their context & behaviour is understood when it’s viewed within this context.
To understand the family, you need to understand the interaction between members.
What is System’s Theory?
System is faulty, not the individual.
Focus on the interactional processes between members of the system.
Systems tend to seek homeostasis, and when threatened, feedback loops can alter or correct the systems functioning.
What is an open system?
Permits new information from its surroundings and continually interacts with those surroundings.
What is a closed system?
Don’t participate in interactions with the outside environment.
Strict rules, loyalty to the system, and emphasis on tradition.
What are subsystems?
Parts of a system designed to carry out particular functions of processes.
I.e. Spouses, parent-child
What is the difference between morphostasis vs morphogenesis?
Morphostasis: A system’s ability to remain stable in the context of change.
Morphogenesis: A system’s ability to change in the context of stability.
T/F:
The goal of Systems Theory is to change.
F. You want to help them reach the insight so they can change. Goal for the family to shift patterns and their dysfunctional balance.
What is therapy an opportunity for?
To learn more about themselves and their relationships so that they can assume a responsibility for their own problems.
What is the Bowen family system’s model?
An intergenerational approach to family therapy.
Human relationships are driven by 2 counterbalancing life forces: Individuality and togetherness.
