Intimacy and the Teen Brain | Clay Center for Young Healthy Minds

Intimacy and the Teenage Brain – Shrinking It Down

Young teen girl smiling while young teen boy kisses her cheek

By Steven Schlozman, MD, Gene Beresin, Executive Director and Ellen Braaten, PhD

Posted in: Multimedia, Parenting Concerns, Podcast, Teenagers

Topics: Child + Adolescent Development, Culture + Society, Relationships

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Intimacy. Is there anything else in the teenage brain? It’s a wonder they make it through school after adolescence hits! We’ll be honest, we didn’t know what direction this conversation would take, but it turned out a great example of how talking helps us to process some of the trickier issues in life.

In this episode of Shrinking It Down, Dr. Ellen Braaten joins Gene and Steve to pick apart what goes on inside the adolescent mind, developmentally, when it comes to attraction, relationships, and delayed gratification. Don’t forget to check out our media list for this one!

Media List

Woman’s hair freezes in Iowa (YouTube)
The Intense Power of Love on Our Kids (MGH Clay Center)
8 Tips for Parents on the Modern Tween and Teen’s Culture of Hooking Up and Hanging Out (MGH Clay Center)
Cognitive and attentional mechanisms in delay of gratification. (Mischel, Ebbesen, Raskoff Zeiss, 1972)
Marshmallow Test (Flood San Diego, YouTube)
Rotary Dial (Wikipedia)
“Telephone Hour” Bye Bye Birdie (YouTube)
Rules for Dating in a Non-Dating World (MGH Clay Center)
Sexual Consent: Teaching Our Teens About the Gray Areas (MGH Clay Center)
Sexually Transmitted Diseases – Adolescents and Young Adults (CDC)
Baker Unveils $42.7B Budget With Education Funding Overhaul (US News & World Report)

Episode Edited by Sara Rattigan

Music by Gene Beresin

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Steven Schlozman, MD

Steven Schlozman, MD, is an assistant professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School (HMS), course director of the psychopathology class for the MIT-HMS Program in Health, Sciences and Technology, and former co-director of the Clay Center for Youn...

To read full bio click here.

Gene Beresin, Executive Director

Gene Beresin, MD, MA is executive director of The MGH Clay Center for Young Healthy Minds, and a staff child and adolescent psychiatrist at Massachusetts General Hospital. He is also...

To learn more about Gene, or to contact him directly, please see Our Team.

Ellen Braaten, PhD

Ellen Braaten, PhD, is executive director of the Learning and Emotional Assessment Program (LEAP) at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), an associate professor of psychology at Harvard Medical School, and former co-director for the MGH Clay Cente...

To read full bio click here.