Adolescence is a period of big changes, a time of getting to know the world around them, looking for new role models and trying new things.

During puberty young people begin to feel lots of physical changes that are out of their control. This changes make them have to adapt to a new, different and unknown body. All these changes come with several ones on the social part.

The awakening of sexuality (“sexuality” has a new meaning and relevance for them), doubts and insecurities, their identity and the new way of relating with parents that cannot give the same support as before (the adolescent is looking for different models).

Adolescence is a crisis that makes us restructure ourselves (new ideas and feelings, new motivations). Through this period we can find lots of questions and insecurities that could indicate a need of help from a psychologist. Asking for help could come from the adolescent when he/she feels that it is difficult to be able to cope with what is going on in their life, or from their parents that see behaviours in their sons and daughters that indicate that there is something going on that needs a professional’s help.

Some problems that are frequent and because of which families ask for help at this period in life are:

• School underachievement or failure.
• Behaviour problems.
• Use of substances.
• Eating disorders.
• Phobias.
• Social inhibition.
• Bullying.
• Identity crisis.
• Depression.
• Anxiety.