Reflections on working with adolescents during the Covid-19 pandemic

ABSTRACT

The paper offers a personal reflection on working for a charity offering psychotherapeutic help to adolescents in an inner London borough during the Covid-19 pandemic. The paper highlights the importance of considering the adolescent’s material circumstances together with their developmental needs when setting up remote work. It explores the unconscious meaning of remote contact and of the adolescent’s choice of a teletherapy modality, as well as the role of fantasy and the body in the absence of visual information. The paper also considers the impact remote working has had on the boundaries and dynamics of psychotherapy.

KEYWORDS:

• Covid-19
• adolescents
• psychotherapy
• teletherapy

Acknowledgments

I would like to acknowledge the support of the Brent Centre’s research team, in particular Greta Steponaityte, in preparing this article for publication.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Katherine Shillito

Katherine Shillito is a child and adolescent psychodynamic counsellor at the Brent Centre for Young People, London, UK, where she works in in-house, schools, private and Youth Offending services.