Adolescents

Treatment during the transition to adulthood requires age-specific attention to diagnosis, privacy, family involvement, medication choice, and monitoring. Thoughtful psychiatric care supports teens as they navigate mental health, treatment decisions, and growing independence. A 16-year-old is referred for anxiety. Her mother describes falling grades, irritability, and hours spent alone in her room. The patient says she cannot sleep and wants something that will work quickly.

Junior and senior year can go wrong without the report card changing. Grades remain solid while sleep disappears, friendships thin out, and parents begin carrying the work the teenager once managed alone. The student still attends school, completes assignments, practices, rehearses, and moves through the college process. Teachers see a capable student. Friends may see the same person they have always known. The cost of producing that appearance has gone somewhere else. It may