The Wave Clinic offers specialist mental health support for children, adolescents, young adults, and families. Our programs are trauma-focused, emphasising the role that past and present experiences play in shaping young people’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviours.
Teenage girls may experience these conflicts face-to-face, but they can also happen online. Gender norms that discourage girls from open conflict can push teenagers towards online animosity. These conflicts may often remain confined to social media and never be properly addressed or resolved.
Young people in the UAE may also be confronted with mental health stigma among friends, family members, and even health institutions. This stigma can discourage young people from seeking help and limit the provision of effective mental health support.
Our self-concept plays a huge role in our mental health. When we don’t feel good about ourselves, we’re more likely to feel anxious, guilty, scared, or sad. We may worry more about past mistakes, feel like we’re unable to do the things we want to do, or struggle to believe that we are loved or lovable.
While the internet can bring many positive things to the lives of young people, it can also be dangerous, with a real risk of cyberbullying, sexual victimisation, and harassment. Despite the ubiquity of the internet in adolescents’ lives, young people are often unable to navigate the internet safely.
Social support can be especially meaningful between individuals who have shared experiences of grief and loss. When someone experiences a sudden and unexpected death, the grieving process can feel very different to when a death is expected, such as following a long illness. There may not be people they are close to who have had a similar experience, and this can feel isolating and lonely.
Many children and adolescents have experienced some form of trauma. They may have experienced a death or loss in their family or among friends. Or they may have experienced attachment trauma when parents have been unable to meet their needs. Some children are exposed to violence in their community or in society, especially when countries experience instability and war.
One pattern of social media use that has drawn the attention of researchers is self-presentation and social comparison. Numerous studies have connected these behavioural patterns to negative mental health consequences, including perfectionism and eating disorders.
Dissociative identity disorder is a type of dissociative disorder. Teenagers may be diagnosed with dissociative disorders if they have regular experiences of dissociation that are distressing and affect their daily life. Sometimes teenagers may have dissociative experiences that are symptoms of a different mental health disorder. In this case, they may not receive a dissociative disorder diagnosis.
Traditional care for anorexia nervosa focuses on weight restoration as the core aim of treatment and measure of recovery. It reduces recovery to numbers: when
As parents and caregivers, most of us will face moments when telling the whole truth feels incredibly difficult. Whether it’s explaining the death of a
Emotionally-based school refusal is often associated with anxiety. But there are many emotions and internal experiences that can lead to school refusal. These include separation anxiety, social anxiety, sadness and distress.
Emotional dysregulation develops when a young person’s emotional learning processes are disrupted. This might be because they lack stable environments and relationships that facilitate socio-emotional learning, or because their caregivers aren’t able to role model effective emotional regulation.
