The Challenge and Potential of the Digital Age: Young People and the Internet

This article offers reflections on young people’s use of cyberspace and the role social media and relating in cyberspace plays in their development. The author outlines a model of working based on ego state diagnosis and Hargaden and Sill’s (2002) model of the self, which she uses to identify how to respond clinically and support these adolescents in their engagement with e-therapy. She touches on some of the complexities of working online in relation to anonymity, confidentiality, and child protection to highlight how cyberspace presents a paradox of challenges and potentials.