Parents who come to our service are often immobilised by their adolescents challenging behaviours. The hope of the parents is often to have this behaviour addressed. Adolescence as a stage of development presents frequent relational challenges between adolescents and parents. Even the most robust of parents can be left feeling hurt, helpless and infuriated. When parents have the added dimension of traumatic family of origin experiences, the capacity of the parent to hold boundaries and respond to behaviour in helpful ways can be compromised. Principles of systemic practice enable us to walk the tightrope of addressing a parent’s traumatic history, while holding the adolescent. This presentation aims to explore ways our team holds this complexity to assist families in the face of multiple hurts and to open up new possibilities in adolescent-parent relationships.
