Why a Teen Suffers: The Method's View on the Roots of Adolescent Depression

The adolescent psyche is a system that hasn't matured yet. Dr. Saulitis stresses that an "autoprogram" runs the teen and leads them, while at the same time a lot of chaotic material piles up in their head. Against this backdrop, external pressure — schools, environments, imposed standards — becomes not just a background but a force that shapes suffering.

Immaturity Plus Environmental Pressure

The core idea of this angle: adolescent distress is not random but a natural result of an immature psyche colliding with coercion. When a teen is somewhere "by force," it triggers resistance, and that resistance can take any form. The doctor says it plainly: what needs to change is not only the teen but the whole situation — both the environment and their place in it.

"He hasn't matured yet, and there's a lot of stuff in his head." "It triggers this resistance in him — what needs changing is both his school and everything else."

Standards That Violate the Brain

A separate cause is imposed images. On social media teens constantly compare themselves with other photos, with "Photoshopped dolls," a half-sexual Barbie presented as the standard. Girls especially begin to hate their own bodies. This leads further to problems with the perception of personality and its expression. By the method's logic, such standards "violate the brain," embedding deep into the second signaling system and disrupting the neuroplasticity of a developing individual.

A Basket of Adolescent Phenomena

The doctor describes a whole cluster of manifestations that add up together. It includes eating disorders and a worsening of depression and anxiety. In severe cases, anorexia can reach catatonia and physiological exhaustion that may even be life-threatening. All of this together he calls "today's basket of teenagers" — not one symptom, but a linked complex.

The Elusive "Trick": State-Switching

The method draws attention to a sign parents often miss. When a teen is alone, they stay with their devices, listen to depressive music, dress in black, write negative, catastrophic poems. But the moment friends arrive — it's "as if they were swapped": they're cheerful, hang out, order pizza. Friends leave — and the child sinks back into the previous state. Seeing a happy child with friends, parents wave it off: "what depression?" Yet the root is that in solitude, when they "have to do something themselves, to be left alone at school," the collapse switches on instantly.

The Delusion of Error and the First Step

The method sees a particular thought-form behind a teen's inaction — a "delusion of error": the inner belief that any action will be wrong. The doctor emphasizes that everyone is "in their own delusional plot," in their own dream. And the way out is not a perfect plan but action now.

"Any step taken now will always be better than the most twisted plan of action in the future."

Practice: Observation Instead of Labels

1. Observe, don't diagnose. Simply write down what the child does — without codes or verdicts.
2. Compare two states. How the child is when alone (devices, music, clothing, texts) versus with friends. Note the difference.
3. Mark the moment of collapse. When exactly the state worsens — when they must do something themselves, stay alone.
4. Look at the environment. Where the teen is by force, what their resistance is against — that is what needs to change.
5. Support the first step. Not the perfect one, but any real step now — it matters more than a postponed "correct" one.