politico.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from politico.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
The Importance of Preserving Youth Agency in Mental Healthcare
Young people with unusual experiences and beliefs are especially vulnerable to threats to their sense of epistemic agency.
57
New research suggests that for young people with unusual experiences and beliefs such as hearing voices and paranoia, the quality of the therapeutic relationship is particularly important for producing a positive clinical outcome.
A variety of factors make these youth especially vulnerable to threats to their sense of agency in the clinical encounter. Acknowledging and mitigating these threats is essential to developing a quality therapeutic relationship and maintaining the young person’s sense of epistemic agency – that is, the sense that they can competently produce and share knowledge.