Helping Teens Move Past Troubled Family Backgrounds

In the past, treating a teen from troubled backgrounds involved a technique based on retelling bad memories of the past.

Although this may be at times a very effective treatment, it focuses only on the negative, never allowing the teen to fill emptiness left by expressing pain.

A new approach to therapy allows the teen to recognize and name the good character traits he/she learned in order to survive his/her abusive backgrounds. By making a teen aware of learned survival instincts, he/she is able to gain a sense of hope and a more optimist outlook of his/her own future.
Below are seven character strengths or survival instincts: Insight - the ability to become aware of parental differences that alert to danger, knowing why the parental figures act as they do, and then finally understanding the reasons behind the parents' actions and how they relate to the family structure.

Independence - the ability of the child to separate him/herself from conflict. The child first drifts from the conflict, and then he/she extricates him/herself from the emotional hold of the parents, finally completely disconnecting him/herself emotionally as well as physically from the dysfunctional family unit, gaining control of his/her own life.
Relationship resilience - the child first bonds with another adult to enlist an active parental figure or care giver.
The relationship progresses into an attachment period in which the child is able to give and receive positive attention and love. Those with this character strength search for and find many positive, close relationships including marriage into a more stable family.

Initiative - the child searches out positive outlets, works toward finding answers, begins to generate his/her own problem solving activities whether they be school work, research, business, or worthy causes.
He/she uses motivation to survive. Creativity & Humor - the ability to escape from the destructive situation in a positive way by playing or pretending to be someone or something else, then shaping this into a constructive talent which changes into a skill, or recognizes the humor in it all. Morality - the ability to judge rights and wrongs, valuing principles, and acting on those principles by serving others.
By identifying these developed traits, surviving dysfunctional family situations, teens gain a sense of pride, no longer looking at the past, but focusing on a better future.