Who Am I Without the Pressure?

Teenagers today are growing up in a world that equates worth with output.  

From social media highlight reels to packed extracurricular schedules, the message is loud and clear: you are as valuable as what you achieve.  

This constant push to perform, produce, and impress can leave adolescents feeling exhausted, disconnected from themselves, and unsure who they are beneath the roles they play.  

For some, it starts early—an elementary schooler praised not for their curiosity but for their reading level, a young athlete celebrated primarily for winning, or a middle schooler valued for their leadership roles more than their joy or kindness.  

Over time, these experiences shape an identity tied tightly to performance and the approval of others.  

While ambition and accomplishment can be healthy motivators, relentless pressure often erodes emotional well-being, fostering perfectionism, anxiety, and an enduring fear of not being “enough.”  

As EMDR-trained clinicians, we are uniquely positioned to help teens untangle their identity from achievement and reprocess the underlying wounds that make them feel their worth is conditional.  

The "Do More" Generation: A Perfect Storm of Pressure  

Today’s adolescents live in a paradoxical world—one with unprecedented opportunity but also unprecedented expectation. Many face the following:  

• Parental pressure fueled by genuine care but often channeled into achievement metrics. 
• Competitive school environments where advanced classes, high GPAs, and résumé-worthy extracurriculars are the norm, not the exception. 
• Social media comparison culture amplifying both successes and perceived failures. 
• Economic uncertainty leading teens (and their parents) to believe that only the highest achievements will ensure future stability.  

Neuroscience tells us that adolescence is a period of immense brain development, particularly in areas related to self-identity, emotional regulation, and decision-making. There is an imbalance between the still-maturing prefrontal control systems and the more reactive limbic/reward circuits. This imbalance helps explain why even high-achieving teens can struggle to regulate emotions or make steady decisions under stress (Casey et al., 2008): “heightened responsiveness to incentives… while impulse control is still relatively immature.”   

When these formative years are saturated with performance-based pressure, the nervous system adapts—often into chronic stress responses. Teens may live in near-constant states of hyperarousal, hypervigilance, or shut-down.  

Helping Teens Reconnect with Their Authentic Self  

Reprocessing alone is not enough; teens also need experiences that affirm their worth beyond achievement. As EMDR clinicians, we can:

• Encourage exploration without evaluation. Support activities that are done purely for enjoyment, not for competition or résumés. 
• Model self-compassion and rest. Many teens have never seen an adult truly value downtime without guilt. Here we are helping teens learn the importance of intentional self-care and self-compassion. I know this can be a tricky one, because if the teens you have in your office are like some of the like the ones I have worked with, they hustle and achieve until they burn out, then we see what the polyvagal theory describes as “dorsal vagal shutdown.”  

The dorsal vagal shutdown in high-functioning teens often shows up subtly, more as an internal shutdown masked by external performance. A teenage girl I worked with was a good example of this. From the outside, everything looked to be “normal,” and she could be described as “accomplished”—she played on a school sports team, maintained friendships, had a boyfriend she talked with daily, attended classes regularly, turned in her homework, and showed up to practices. 

However, in sessions she began to describe life as if she were moving on “autopilot.” She felt overwhelmed thinking about her to do list, finding herself unable to complete assignments until the last minute, and she spent more time zoning out on her phone, napping after school, and sleeping in late. She also reported frequent headaches and stomachaches without any clear medical explanation, telling me, “I don’t really know, I just don’t feel like I have energy or motivation anymore.”  

This is the opposite of what we are trying to teach these teens about rest and self-compassion. We want them to learn the “Ventral vagal state,” where they can feel safe, present, mindful and connected.  (Sutton, 2023) 

This client learned over time to check in with her body, began to practice breathing exercises and started to have more open conversations with her parents about the pressure to perform and be “ok” that she was feeling. Instead of talking about all the to dos of the day and week, her parents began learning to allow her the space to share her feelings of anxiety and uncertainty, without offering her suggestions on how she could solve the problem and or make it better.

• Challenge “hustle culture” narratives. Explore with them how “doing more” is not always the same as “becoming more.” 
• Promote self-awareness practices. Journaling, mindfulness, or creative expression can help teens tune into their internal world, rather than just external expectations. This is important in their brain development; slowing down to identify emotions and motivations will help with the imbalance between the limbic and prefrontal cortex.   

The Clinician’s Role: Holding Space, Not Adding Pressure  

In a world that constantly tells teens to speed up, clinicians have the opportunity to be one of the few spaces where slowing down is safe—and even encouraged.  

Our role is not to push teens toward more goals, but to help them tolerate stillness, uncertainty, and the unfamiliar feeling of not performing.  

This can be uncomfortable at first, especially for high functioning teens. I have worked with several teens that come in with a smile on their face and stories about what is going well, homework getting turned in, and how they did on the math test this week; it’s polished and almost performative, without any real emotional substance. They want to tell me what they think they need to, in order to be perceived as having it all together. 

This is the space, once you have established the therapeutic relationship, where they can finally exist without judgement and you can have the breakthrough moment where healing really begins.  

One young teen came in weekly; she would tell me about how she was getting her homework done, a random story here and there about a kid in class, and thoughts about a club or sport she was looking to participate in this year. Her nervous system was showing me subtle signs that something deeper was going on; her smile lacked joy, her eyes searched for approval, and when I could ask a question about peer connection or reflection on her own experience, she would look away and would sometimes get a sad expression on her face. 

The answers would shift to “I don’t know,” and then she would fill the quiet with more talking about her favorite YouTube show and the characters’ stories. 

The turning point came in a moment of stillness, that quiet and unfamiliar space where there was no performance necessary.

I gave her time to share her stories, and I didn’t challenge what I saw. I just brought awareness to the subtle changes with curiosity, and she learned to settle into it. She started listening to her body and her thoughts in the quiet moments of session, and she let the tears come up.  

She shared, “I don’t actually have friends, no one wants to hang out with me outside of school, and no one really even talks to me at the lunch table.” This girl shared that she felt, “invisible,” and it had her questioning her self-worth. Now that the implicit had become explicit we were on the same page, and she was able to being to work towards healing.  

Without the distraction of achievement, deeper insecurities and fears may surface. EMDR allows us to meet those moments with compassion and tools for integration.  

A Call to Reflection for EMDR Clinicians  

Teen Mental Health Awareness Month is a reminder that our work with adolescents goes beyond symptom reduction—it’s about shaping a healthier developmental trajectory. 

When we help teens uncouple their self-worth from performance, we aren’t just reducing anxiety or preventing burnout; we’re giving them a foundation for lifelong resilience and authenticity.  

Ask yourself:  

• How might I be unconsciously reinforcing performance-based identity in the teens I work with? 
• Am I giving equal space to exploring who they are as to what they do? 
• What opportunities am I creating for them to feel valued simply for existing?  

Final Thoughts  

The “Do More” generation faces unique challenges that demand intentional, compassionate intervention. Through EMDR, we can help adolescents process the experiences that shaped their performance-based identity, install healthier self-beliefs, and experience themselves as enough—regardless of grades, trophies, or accolades.  

In a culture urging them to strive endlessly, our gift is to hold a mirror to their inherent worth and to walk beside them as they rediscover who they are when the pressure fades.  

Because when a teen realizes they are more than their achievements, they don’t just survive—they finally get the chance to truly thrive.   

If you’re an EMDR therapist seeking a supportive consultation group to strengthen your clinical skills working with children and adolescents, I invite you to reach out to me at Jessica@jhagancounseling.com.  

For those wishing to deepen their knowledge and pursue further training, I encourage you to explore the opportunities available through The Center for Excellence in EMDR Therapy. 

References:   
Casey, B. J., Jones, R. M., & Hare, T. A. (2008). The adolescent brain. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1124, 111–126. https://doi.org/10.1196/annals.1440.010  

Sutton, J. (2023, October 17). 18 Polyvagal Theory & how to use the exercises in therapy [Scientifically reviewed by M. Neuhaus, Ph.D.]. PositivePsychology.com. https://positivepsychology.com/polyvagal-theory/