Are we helping?

Sometimes adolescents who could mature on their own become "psychiatric patients" because psychiatrists take them into treatment. In the process, some may be victimized by being made more dependent than necessary. Others may be helped, although they could have survived without therapy. A few are able to extract themselves after minimal contact has resolved their most critical problems. To be truly helpful, psychiatrists must be able to discern and support appropriate efforts by the adolescent to accomplish his/her own maturing and to resist holding on inappropriately.