ABSTRACT
With some clients, the language they use to describe themselves, others, and their situations seems to hold them as prisoners of the present or past with little or no sense of a future without problems, pain, or suffering. Adolescents, because of their age, may well not have had the expe rience of weathering difficult times and tend to find it difficult to see current difficulties in per spective. A therapist can offer reassurance that things can and will change. As always, acknowl edgment is the necessary building block from which we work. This is critical if the adolescent is to feel understood. Through this exercise, therapists will learn how to build on acknowledgment by offering small changes in language that open up the possibilities for future change.
