Should I Go to Therapy If My Teen Is in Therapy?

"My mom makes me come here. Her mental health is worse than mine."

I've heard some version of that more times than I can count over teh last 12+ years of seeing teens in counseling. Sometimes it's about a parent's anxiety. Sometimes it's about anger, or drinking, or a parent who clearly needs support and won't get it. The specifics change. The message doesn't: you're asking me to do something you won't do.

I wrote about that a few years ago in Mom's Mental Health Matters, and I mentioned there that I'd watched the opposite happen too. Parents who went to therapy, did the work, and then had a reluctant teenager decide they were ready to go too.

I've been thinking about that more lately. Not the parent who won't get help. The parent who does.

Because I don't think the value of that is only what it does for the parent. I think it changes what therapy means inside the family.

So if you're asking whether you should go to therapy while your teen is in therapy, my answer is usually yes, with one condition: not the same therapist. Your teen needs one that's clearly theirs, and you need one that's clearly yours. More on how that works below.

Why does it matter if a parent goes to therapy too?

Here's the version of therapy a lot of teenagers walk into:

Something is wrong with you. We're taking you somewhere so someone can fix it.

That's the story a lot of families are telling, even when nobody says it out loud. The teen is the one with the attitude, the failing grade, the meltdowns. Therapy is where you send the person who's causing the trouble. We wrote about how kids pick up on that in My Child Doesn't Want to Go to Therapy, especially when therapy shows up right after a bad week or a big consequence.

Now here's the other version:

In our family, when something gets in the way of the life we want, we get help with it.

Same appointment. Completely different meaning.

A parent being in therapy is one of the fastest ways I know to move a family from the first version to the second one. Not by explaining it. By demonstrating it.

What if my teen really is the one who needs treatment?

Sometimes they are, and I want to be clear about that.

Plenty of teenagers come to us with something specific and real. OCD. PTSD. Panic attacks. Depression. Self harm. That's not a family communication problem, and pretending everyone shares the struggle equally would be its own kind of dishonest.

So this isn't about spreading the responsibility around evenly.

It's about what gets communicated when the adults in the house are also willing to look at their own stress, grief, anxiety, or reactions. Your teen can need real treatment and benefit from watching you take your own mental health seriously. Those aren't in competition.

What does a teen actually notice when a parent is in therapy?

More than they say.

They notice that you went. Teenagers are excellent at spotting hypocrisy. They're just as good at noticing when it isn't there.

They notice when something changes. Dad handles a frustrating night differently than he used to. Mom doesn't get pulled into every argument. Something that used to blow up just doesn't anymore.

They connect that change to therapy. This is the part that matters most. Once a kid decides therapy is the reason their parent is different, therapy stops being a label and becomes a thing that works.

That last one is different from telling your kid that therapy is good. It's evidence, and it's happening in their own house.

A teenager who believes therapy works is a teenager who engages. They talk. They try the thing we practiced. They come back. And getting a teen through the door isn't the same as getting a teen to participate.

Does going to therapy myself make me more credible with my teen?

The simple answer here is yes.

If you've never been to therapy, asking your kid to open up to a stranger is a tough sell. You're asking them to do something you haven't done.

If you have been, you can say something much more useful:

"I know this feels awkward. I've sat in that chair. Do the practice anyway, because that's the part that actually helps."

You'll also understand what you're asking. You'll know that some weeks you don't want to go. That sometimes your therapist says something you'd rather not hear. That you can know exactly what you're supposed to be doing and still not do it. That the real work happens between sessions, which is something we tell teens directly in this post written for them.

So when your teen wants to cancel, you'll get it. And you'll be less likely to read it as your kid being difficult or wasting your money. That's a very different conversation. If you're still figuring out how to raise the subject at all, this post on talking to your teen about therapy is a good place to start.

What about dads?

Almost everything written about parents and mental health is written to moms. I've written a fair amount of it myself.

But some of the biggest shifts I've seen in a teenager's therapy started with a dad deciding to go.

I want to be careful here, because I'm describing people I've worked with, not making claims about men in general. Still, it's worth saying.

One group I've really enjoyed working with over the years is professional men who finally get tired of anxiety or panic running part of their life. They're not usually looking to talk about their feelings for an hour a week. They want to get on a plane again, or sit through a meeting without their heart pounding.

What they want to know is: what are we doing, why are we doing it, and what do I practice this week?

That's a great fit for how we work. Give them a clear plan and a reason, and they do it. They're some of the most motivated people I see, and they're willing to be uncomfortable if there's a point to it. A lot of them also aren't here for years. Focused work on anxiety or panic can make a real difference in a matter of months. Certainly it doesn't happen overnight, and everyone is different. But "I'll be in therapy forever" usually isn't how it goes.

And when that man is also the father of a teenager, something else happens. His kid watches him do it.

For a teenage son especially, that lands differently than a speech about how it's okay for men to ask for help. He gets to watch it, and then watch it work.

Should a parent and teenager see the same therapist?

In general, no.

Your teen needs to know, without any doubt, their therapist is their. The therapist is “on their side.” Their primary job is to look out for that teen and they’re not dramatically influenced by mom or dad’s perception.

Teenagers are already watching for this. They're working out whether the adult in the room is there for them or reporting back to you. If that same person is also meeting privately with you, that question never fully goes away, and a teen who isn't sure holds back.

What you need is different. You need somewhere you can say the honest thing. I'm exhausted. I don't really like who my kid has been lately. I'm scared. I'm angry, and then I feel guilty about being angry. You shouldn't have to soften any of that because you're worried about how it will land on your kid's therapy.

One therapist trying to hold both roles ends up doing neither one well.

Can a parent and teenager see different therapists at the same practice?

Yes, and we have families doing exactly that right now. This is actually very common at Aspire Counseling.

Each person is a separate client with their own therapist and their own therapy. Some families schedule at the same time and go to two different offices in the same building. More often people come at different times, especially once the teen is driving themselves.

Being at the same practice makes a few things easier. One phone call when something needs to move. One client care team who knows your family's schedule. And our clinicians train together in ongoing consultation groups for TF-CBT, DBT, ERP, CPT and EMDR, so nobody is working alone or from a different playbook.

You could also just find a therapist somewhere else, and plenty of parents do. That works fine too.

Will my therapist and my teenager's therapist talk to each other?

Not routinely, no. But when needed, absolutely.

Each person here is their own client. Attending the same practice as a family member does not mean information moves between therapists, and nothing is shared without a release you've signed.

There are situations where some coordinated care genuinely helps, and when that comes up we're thoughtful about consent, about whether it's clinically necessary, and about what's actually appropriate to share. It stays narrow and purposeful.

What it never becomes is a back channel. Your therapy is not a way to find out what your teen said in session. What your teen brings to their therapist stays with their therapist, with the usual safety exceptions. We go deeper on how teen confidentiality works here.

We protect that on purpose. A teenager who thinks their sessions are being reported home usually stops talking.

Isn't this what family therapy is for?

Sometimes family work is the right answer, and that's a real thing. Your teen's therapist may ask you to join sessions as part of your teen's treatment, and we've written about why. I also have a lot of respect for the way DBT teaches skills to families so everyone ends up with the same language for what they're doing.

But that isn't what I'm describing here.

What I'm describing is simpler. One parent, quietly getting their own help, with their own therapist, for their own reasons. And letting their kid see it.

That's the antidote to a family organizing itself around the idea that the teenager is the problem. Not a better speech about why therapy matters. Just a parent who goes.

Start Therapy for Yourself in Columbia or Lee's Summit, MO

If your teen is in therapy and you've been putting off your own anxiety, your own stress, or whatever this season has been doing to you, that's worth taking seriously. It's good for you. It also tends to be good for your kid.

We work with adults and teens in Columbia and Lee's Summit, and statewide through online therapy. You don't have to know what you need before you call.

Call (816) 287-1116 for Lee's Summit or 573-328-2288 for Columbia, and our client care team will help you find the right fit. If your teen is already with us, let us know, and we'll make sure you're matched with a different clinician.

Whenever you're ready for effective care and lasting change, we're here.

A few more questions we get

Does it actually help teenagers when their parents go to therapy too? In my experience, yes, though not for the reason people expect. The benefit isn't just that the parent is doing better. It's that the teen sees therapy modeled as something people use on purpose, and often sees it produce a change they can point to.

Do I have to commit to long term therapy for this to matter? No. A few months of focused work on anxiety or panic can make a real difference, and your teen doesn't need you to be in therapy for years to notice that you went.

What if my teen thinks going to therapy means they're the problem? That's a common read, especially if therapy showed up right after a hard stretch. Going yourself is one of the more effective ways to change that story, because it moves therapy from something being done to them to something your family does.

About the Author

Jessica Oliver, MSW, LCSW is the founder and clinical director of Aspire Counseling.

From 2015 to 2017, she worked in a school setting, where she sat down with older kids and teenagers every single day. When she opened Aspire, most of her caseload was still children and teens, and for years that was the center of her work.

Over time she found herself seeing more and more adults, and realized how much she loves working with parents. Part of that is that it's another way to help the kids. A parent who has real support, actual coping skills, and something meaningful in their own life is a parent who can show up well on more days than not. Teenagers notice the difference.