Stuck After Treatment: Real Options Parents Overlook, with Will White

About this episode

Will White discusses the evolving landscape of behavioral health for young people and the new options available for those struggling after treatment.

Episode 323 ABOUT THE EPISODE: Will White has been doing this work since last century, and he means that literally. Licensed since 1989, he has worked in group homes, boarding schools, mental health centers, and in 1996, co-founded Summit Achievement, a wilderness therapy program he ran for nearly 27 years. When he tells you the landscape of behavioral health for young people has shifted more in the last five years than in the previous three decades combined, he knows what he’s talking about. The externalizers of a generation ago, the kids who broke things, slammed doors, and announced their pain loudly, have largely given way to a different kind of struggling young person. One who is anxious, inward, and frozen. Who won’t leave the room, won’t leave the house, and whose parents keep quietly rearranging life around them in an effort to keep the peace. Will has watched this pattern closely, including at Mountain Valley Treatment Center, where young residents had become so overwhelmed by anxiety that the outside world felt completely out of reach. The treatment models that worked before are not always the ones that work now, and the gap between what young people need and what is…

People in this episode

Host: Brenda Zane

Guest: Will White

Topics covered

• behavioral health
• youth anxiety
• treatment options
• parenting
• addiction recovery

Keywords

• youth treatment
• anxiety
• wilderness therapy
• parenting strategies
• addiction

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Summit Achievement, Mountain Valley Treatment Center, The Trade

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