“Teenagers are more at risk in fragmented and toxic society where family disintegration, single parenthood and absent fathers are becoming the norm. Unresolved parental and intergenerational conflicts and marginalization along with the deleterious impact of social media are damaging adolescents’ health development, resulting in a variety of symptoms and disorders” (Assisi Manifesto, 2023). In this session from the 2024 AAMFT At Home series, world renowned professor Maurizio Andolfi outlines the essential need to listen to youth voice in therapy without prejudice and labelling. Using video of a family session from the Academia Multimedia Collection, Andolfi illustrates how to build an alliance with a withdrawn teenager with the use of relational questions in presence of his mother and his maternal grandparents.
