Rural Telemental Health and Adolescents: Try a Little Shakespeare

ABSTRACT

Twenty-five percent of Americans live in rural areas, almost all of which are designated as mental health service shortage areas. This designation represents serious problems for adolescents needing help with predictable developmental problems. The project described serves communities without mental health professionals; uses telemental health technology, co-located in rural primary care clinics; and emphasizes communication and coordination among professionals and clients. An example of addressing identity formation in an adolescent experiencing significant family and relational stress is explored, including the resolution of an ongoing friendship problem by using a school assignment, an analysis of Shakespeare’s Sonnet 48. Discussion includes safety, immediacy, and using bibliotherapy in telemental health with adolescents, as well as the appropriateness of telemental health for individual and parent-child sessions.

KEYWORDS:

• Adolescent development
• adolescents
• creativity in counseling
• developmental relational counseling
• mental health
• poetry
• rural
• Shakespeare
• telemental health

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jane Covey Hovland

Jane Covey Hovland is Professor Emerita, Department of Biomedical Sciences and Center for Rural Mental Health Studies at the University of Minnesota Medical School, Duluth, Minnesota.