Adolescent Romantic Relationships: Exploring the perspectives of clinicians and adolescents

Abstract

Aims and Rationale: Romantic relationships are recognised for playing a pivotal role for the emerging adolescent. These relationships are frequently reported to be detrimental to adolescent emotional and psychological well-being, though research focusing on adolescents’ romantic relationships in a clinical capacity is significantly restricted. This study endeavours to understand factors that affect youth in romantic relationships according to practitioners, and how these factors correspond to adolescents with no experience of therapy. These findings aim to broaden an understanding of the subject area, develop therapeutic practices and explore whether adolescents would benefit from counselling regarding their romantic relationships. Method: A mixed-method approach was used to carry out semi-structured interviews with 7 therapeutic practitioners to explore factors that affect adolescent romantic relationships. Themes extracted from a thematic analysis were used to develop an online q-sort survey with a non-clinical adolescent sample. Subjective viewpoints of 33 adolescents were quantitatively examined and triangulated with practitioners’ views. Results: The triangulated findings developed an understanding of factors that may affect adolescent adjustments to romantic relationships. Perspectives held by practitioners and those from adolescents, suggested key differences in developmental benefits, emotional and social adjustments and the role of adults. Similarities regarding the difficulties experienced by adolescent males were identified. Conclusion: Contributions of the findings go beyond whether counselling is appropriate or needed for adolescents in a romantic relationship. They add to an understanding of the discrepancies in the way romantic relationships are perceived by practitioners in affecting adolescents’ adjustments and development, as opposed to how young people actually experience these relationships.