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CounselEd
Self-injurious Behavior in Social Media Consumed Youth
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The T.E.A. framework encourages youth to learn about the
nature of trauma and take responsibility for their personal recovery.
Thus, Educate/Empower symbolizes the importance of the client’s
own ability to heal regardless of youth. Classic active listening and
open-ended questions can be utilized to acquire understanding of
how the client’s adolescent experience may be being interpreted
as traumatic and gain insight into social media’s role. Then using
motivational interviewing and psychoeducation, therapists can help
clients discover their motives for SIB and weigh the helpful versus
hurtful impacts of their social media involvement. Therapists coop-
eratively guide clients in assessing attributes of social networking
and self-harming that they would like to change.
However, greater importance is placed on empowering the cli-
ent’s ability try new things. Once clients have an understanding of
their trauma experience and a knowledge base of trauma in general,
they are better prepared to begin creating a world beyond their trau-
ma (Bicknell-Hentges & Lynch, 2009). Therapists enhance this readi-
ness by supporting clients in creating, dreaming, and exploring more
of who they are and want to be. Thus, they are engaging the adoles-
cent’s natural stage of development—identity formation. Therapists
should resist getting trapped in dialog about symptom management
and instead prioritize reserving session time to discuss the ado-
lescent’s hobbies, talents, and interests. Short, motivational video
clips/tutorials easily accessed online are a creative way in session
to expose clients to new experiences related to their identified areas
of interest. Parents can be invited into sessions to explore potential
local community activities that the client might be interested in en-
rolling. Clients are empowered to move beyond the current function-
ality of their SIB, even beyond alternative coping skills, to think big
about who they are and want to be. If the client’s current support
network or means does not allow for this sort of real-life exploring,
the therapist should not be discouraged, but instead recognize the
power of their session time. For example, if an adolescent client with
SIB aspires to be a musician, but his or her parents cannot afford
music lessons, the therapist can give the client homework related to
the area of interest, such as writing a lyrical song or bringing in his
or her favorite song to share in the next session.
SIB can make helping professionals want to take control and
move to action. However, this is highly counterproductive to the
T.E.A. Model and only compounds the trauma perception of social-
media consumed adolescents seeking individuality and approval.
The Accept/Autonomy component emphasizes the therapist’s role in
creating a safe space for clients to process the confusing develop-
mental stage and/or trauma without the fear of rejection. Therapists
help clients recognize qualities of their character or choices beyond
SIB that are worthy of praise and identify additional avenues for
validation. For example, adolescent SIB clients who were raised in
a Christian home, but experiencing a crisis in faith—a little legwork
prior to a session can go a long way by contacting local youth pas-
tors to discuss their opportunities and explore if someone like your
client would be well received. Then use session time to duplicate
the call, but with the client on speaker supporting him or her as the
lead communicator. Follow this up by talking with the parents and
“Classic
active listening
and
open-ended
questions
can be utilized
to acquire understanding
of how the client’s
adolescent experience
may be being interpreted
as traumatic and
gain
insight
into social
media’s role.”