Ask when it began and what that first week was like. What now looks like a teenager enjoying their freedom often started as fear that nobody could reach.

What the research says

An empirical review of acceptance and commitment therapy for anxiety and obsessive compulsive problems found that psychological flexibility, measured with the standard questionnaire, is consistently related to anxiety. Much of that evidence is cross-sectional and rests on one self-report measure with known limitations. Even so, it supports the idea that an anxious core does not simply vanish when the surface behaviour changes shape.

Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.