Teenage love; Counselors Role

Human sexuality is so vast and important topic for youth counselors that it would require a long and deep study and training .A good psycho-sexual maturation, premise for a proper discovery of one’s personal identity and social role, depends mostly on a satisfactory experience in the relationship with the parents in the previous periods of life. For example, certain adolescents don’t succeed in achieving a mature attitude towards sex because, having experienced lack of love from the parents, they lose confidence in themselves and judge themselves unworthy to be loved by others, especially by the opposite sex.

If in particular, the process of identification with the parent of the same sex has been disturbed, the adolescent may have to face difficulties and perplexities about his sexual identity that can become evident in various forms of deviations. But even though the young adolescents carry in their minds and spirits the successes or the painful wounds of their previous relationship with their parents, it is not that nothing can be done to change or at least to reduce the negative effects of these experiences. The youngsters have to be guided more and more through the period of adolescence to find out the main values, guidelines and scope that give exhaustive meaning to life. These alone rather than fear, threats and reticence will help the process of maturation of their personality. In other words they have to make a real experience of love. Love must be the context in which sexuality can blossom, develop and bear fruit or individuals and society. Love is opening to others, and in case of marriage, to the person of the opposite sex who is sharing our life; a gift of one’s life to the loved person, without limits of quantity or time. Love is forever.

Love is also the very essence of God. Our search for happiness, real meaning in life, satisfactory enjoyment of our body and its sex faculties cannot be separated from our search for God, who is perfect Happiness and Full meaning. A man and a woman loving each other in the conjugal act are participating in the creative love of God.
These considerations are the key that will allow the counselors to face the questions of the youngsters concerning the value of the sex activity and behaviour. To these and other questions that very often are put to the counselors, answers have to be given that must not appear as ready made judgment and degradation of human sexuality. These must help the youth in building up correct and lasting criteria of evaluation of one’s behaviour.
We must tell clearly that whatever helps our opening to others, extending our capability of sharing and giving, increases the dignity and self respect of the person with whom we are or would like to be in close relationship, is certainly good and enriching. The aim of our educational work is not to make the youth accept rigid ready-made judgments.

Instead we have to offer them all the elements from the biopsychological and moral point of view, that will allow the formation of personal evaluations, harmonization of their emotions and experiences with socially accepted values, fostering the perception of their responsibility toward society in living the sex power, that always potentially creative of new life. If we are able to show, through coherence of our life, that what we teach is nothing but we believe and practice, we will really help, as parents or teachers, the progressive achievement of maturity of our children and their detachment from us to start a satisfactory and autonomous life.
Source: Dr Anthony Grugny M.D