The Parallel Process

Growing Alongside Your Adolescent or Young Adult in Treatment

by Krissy Pozatek, MSW

In this revised and updated edition, Krissy Pozatek teaches parents to examine their own patterns and build new skills to help teens and young adults in crisis and treatment to become more self-aware, build new skills, regain confidence, and learn how to safeguard the emotional work their child is doing in treatment.

The bestselling The Parallel Process revised and updated new edition contains two new chapters and other valuable insights and information from the author, care providers, and parents integrated throughout the book. It also contains moving and poignant forewords by a care provider and parent. For a parent of a struggling teen or young adult, a mental health treatment program that takes the child out of the home for a period of time offers parents a respite from the daily tumult of negotiations, power-struggles, and unsafe behaviors. However, just as a young person is undergoing self-discovery, skill-development, and learning accountability, parents also need to engage in a similar process can use the crisis of having a child in treatment to reflect on their own patterns that may have contributed to the families’ unraveling. This is The Parallel Process.

Using case examples garnered from her many years as an adolescent and family therapist, Krissy Pozatek shows parents of preteens, adolescents, and young adults how they can break enmeshed parent-child patterns and promote their child’s emotional health and maturation through attuning to emotions, setting safety boundaries, and not rushing to the rescue. When parents learn to not take responsibility for their children’s emotions, problems, and behaviors, their kids are more likely to take ownership and reclaim their lives. Likewise, parents can recognize their own patterns of surrendering their lives and personalities to parenting. As such, The Parallel Process is an essential primer for all parents of struggling teens, who are seeking to grow together as they navigate the adolescent years.