How do we know when our adolescent is experiencing mental health difficulties versus the difficulties of being a teenager? This is often a difficult question to grapple with.  There have been plenty of teenagers in counseling who are simply experiencing the difficulties of their developmental stage in life, which we could argue is not such a bad circumstance. Conversely, there have been many teenagers suffering from clinical depression and anxiety that have not been treated until later in their lives. Often, their mental health symptoms are chalked up to be “teenage angst.”