Most parents arrive at this page having already tried to connect with their teens. You have asked how they are. You have asked what is wrong. You have asked in the car, because everyone knows the car is easier than face to face.
And you have gotten nothing and I'm fine and a door closing.
That is not a failure of parenting. Adolescence involves a necessary and often abrupt separation from parents, and it is exactly the developmental stage where talking to you becomes hardest - sometimes precisely when it would help most.
When therapy is worth considering
Not because something has gone catastrophically wrong. Most of the teenagers we see are managing school and have friends, and something has changed that has not changed back.
Worth taking seriously:
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A shift in mood or behaviour that has lasted more than a few weeks
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Withdrawal - from family, from friends, from things they used to care about
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Sleep that has changed significantly in either direction
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School refusal, or a sudden drop in performance
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Anger that seems out of proportion to what triggered it
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Anxiety that has started limiting what they will do
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A recent event: a family separation, a bereavement, a move, a friendship group collapsing
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Your own instinct that something is off, even without evidence you could explain to someone else
That last one is worth trusting. Parents are usually right that something has changed, even when they are wrong about what.
If you are worried about your teenager's immediate safety, please contact us directly rather than reading further - call or WhatsApp +971 58 557 6220.
What is different about therapy at this age
They have to want it, at least slightly. A teenager brought against their will can attend without engaging, and the first sessions are often spent establishing that this is not a punishment and not a report card. A skilled therapist expects that and works with it rather than around it.
It is not the same conversation you would have. A therapist is not a parent, has no stake in their choices, and is not going to be disappointed. That combination makes things sayable that are not sayable at home - which is the point, and occasionally the difficult part for parents.
It is often about identity, not a problem. A great deal of adolescent difficulty is not a disorder. It is the ordinary business of working out who you are, made harder by circumstances. Therapy is a place to do that with someone who is not invested in the answer.
The question every parent asks: what will they tell you?
This is worth being clear about, because it determines whether the work is possible at all.
Therapy for a teenager only works if they believe the room is theirs. If they think the content of a session comes back to their parents, they will not trust their therapist, they will monitor what they say - and the sessions become futile..
So the general shape is this: your therapist will discuss confidentiality with you and with your teenager at the start, and will be explicit with both of you about what is and is not shared. You will be kept informed about how the work is going. You will not be given a transcript.
The exception is the same one that exists everywhere in clinical practice: where there is a serious risk of harm, a clinician has a duty to act, and that is explained to your teenager at the beginning of therapy..
Most parents find this harder in theory than in practice. What you generally get is a therapist who tells you what would help at home and how to support them, without telling you exactly what your child said.
[⚠ Clinician review: this section must match the clinic's actual practice, including how much detail parents are given and at what age the balance shifts. It is the most complaint-prone section on the page.]
Teenagers in Dubai
Some pressures here are specific enough to be worth naming.
The academic load is heavier than most parents experienced. IB and A-Level pressure, university applications aimed at another country, and a school culture where a great many students are high-achieving. The comparison set is unusually strong.
Friendship groups dissolve without warning. Contracts end and families leave. Teenagers here lose close friends to relocation repeatedly, and each loss is real and felt. Years of investing into friendships, learning to trust, and then having to say goodbye.
Belonging is a live question. Third-culture teenagers hold a passport from one place, live in another, and often feel entirely at home in neither. That is a genuine identity question rather than a phase, and it is one their parents usually cannot answer from experience.
They may be carrying the move. A teenager relocated at fourteen did not choose it, and often cannot say so, because their family sess that the move was a good decision and maybe a necessary one.
How we work
Individual therapy with the teenager, usually weekly. What that looks like depends on them - some talk readily, some need a longer runway.
Sara Caroppo works with children and teenagers from ages 3 to 18 and delivers cognitive behavioural work with this age group, which suits anxiety and low mood in particular.
Dr Nayla Daou and Yassine Tayi also work with older teenagers, with a psychodynamic and EMDR focus.
Parents are involved, at the right distance. You will be part of the work - usually through separate conversations about what would help at home rather than through joint sessions. How much involvement depends on age: with a thirteen-year-old it is closer, with a seventeen-year-old it is lighter.
Meet the team → · Child psychology →
Common questions
My teenager refuses to go. What do I do? Common, and not the end of the conversation. What often works better than persuading or coercing is changing the approach: this is not a punishment, not because something is wrong with them, and they are not obliged to talk about anything. Some parents come in for a session alone first - that is a legitimate way to start, and sometimes what changes things.
What age do you see? From 3 to 18. Teenagers are usually seen individually, with parents involved separately.
Will you tell me what they say? You will be kept informed about how the work is going. You will not be given a transcript. See the section above - this is what makes the therapy work at all.
Is this just a phase? Sometimes, and a therapist will tell you if they think so. But "a phase" and "worth support" are not opposites - a difficult period that passes can still leave a mark, and passing through it with help tends to leave less of one.
Can we come as a family? We do not offer family therapy. What we do offer is individual work with your teenager plus separate parent sessions, which for most families addresses what they were looking for.
They've been diagnosed with something - do you work with that? Yes. Teenagers with ADHD, learning differences or autism are a substantial part of this work, often for the emotional consequences rather than the diagnosis itself: the self-esteem, the years of being told to try harder, the identity that has formed around it. ADHD support →
Getting in touch
If you are not sure whether this is something or nothing, that uncertainty is a reasonable thing to bring. A first conversation can be with you alone.
WhatsApp +971 58 557 6220, email info@clearmindscenter.com, or use the contact form.
Fees and payment →