Anxiety is a relatively recent development, and up until a few years ago, it was not a common problem among young teenagers. Anxiety affects the lives of everyone in a family, as the teenagers start to feel misunderstood and uncomfortable in their own skin, and the parents feel powerless and worried about their children. This sense of helplessness is often what pushes us to seek professional help. The role of the psychologist is to listen, and to encourage the patient to verbalise their feelings and find the right words to describe their distress. The therapist’s office is where fears, anxieties, and worries are translated into words. Andreoli says that it should be a healing space, because ‘it is what we don’t say that makes us feel bad’.
There are many reasons why teenagers may feel uncomfortable in their environment. Today’s society is very different from that of our parents and grandparents. Fierce competition, unattainable models of success, and money worries are among the main triggers of anxiety in young people. Teenagers sometimes worry about their parents’ economic stability, so they choose not to express their needs, so as not to burden them further. Today’s parents, on the other hand, tend to do everything they can to please their children, making sacrifices and going above and beyond to fulfil their every wish.
Parents and children therefore protect each other in a constant exchange of equal roles. Parents, and especially fathers, are no longer authoritative, rule-making disciplinarians; they have softened their approach to raising their children, and have learnt to use dialogue as a means of avoiding conflict.
In an attempt to give our children everything, we have started to provide them with ‘too much’, and this can lead to anxiety. This anxiety, however, serves as a warning, and tells us that we should perhaps stop trying to give so much.
