“Good habits formed at youth make all the difference.”
Aristotle
Is your teen struggling to manage their emotions and behaviors? Are they overwhelmed with anxiety? Are they overly depressed and sad? Maybe they are out of control with anger and defiance. If you have tried to help your teen with little to zero effectiveness perhaps Crossroads Counseling’s Teen Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) Group is exactly what your teen needs.
What is DBT?
DBT aims to reduce problematic behavior patterns by teaching and practicing new skills. These skills assist in managing emotions, teaching interpersonal skills, and decreasing conflicts in relationships.
Crossroads Counseling’s Teen DBT skills group is structured in four specific modules: (1) Mindfulness, (2) Emotion Regulation, (3) Distress Tolerance, and (4) Interpersonal Effectiveness. There is an an additional module for adolescents and families called “The middle path.”
Mindfulness
The main purpose of this module is to teach clients to be present and pay attention in the moment without judgement.
Distress Tolerance
In this module clients are taught specific stress management skills in order “to survive a crisis without making it worse.”
Emotion Regulation
In this module clients with learn how to skillfully deal with mild to intense emotions in a more effective way by noticing them, learning to tolerating them, and finally deciding how to effectively respond to them.
Interpersonal Effectiveness
This module focuses in teaching clients how to deal with others in a more effective way without damaging the relationship, handling interpersonal conflict or assessing whether a relationship is toxic or not.
Walking The Middle Path
Teens and their parents learn how to validate one another, how to compromise and negotiate, and how to connect with empathy.
Is This Group Right For My Teen?
Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) skills group can be helpful for teens who struggle with:
- managing difficult emotions such as anxiety and/or depression
- excessive worry and stress
- peer and family issues
- impulsive/emotionally driven decisions
- relationship and social issues
- anger management and behavioral issues
This group will have the most impact when it is utilized in conjunction with teen therapy or family therapy. The best outcome for your teen will be when your teen is working with a teen counselor at Crossroads and is attending this DBT skills group.
How Does the Group Work?
DBT Skills are taught on a weekly basis in a 1.5 hour group session. DBT skill groups are not traditional “process” groups where people share feelings, thoughts, opinions and simply discuss about them. Rather, a DBT Skills group is much more like a class on “emotional intelligence.” Certainly sharing can and does happen, and members can be supportive to one another as far as they are comfortable; however, the group is about learning DBT skills in a classroom style format.
As your teen learns how to manage their emotions without judgement (mindfulness) and to learn techniques to regulate their emotions more effectively it will make their lives better.
How Will I know What My Teen is Learning?
This group also contains a parent education component as a part of the Family Therapy Treatment Program and is conjunction with Love and Logic class for parents/caretakers. Parents and/or guardians are invited to attend 2 (one at the mid-point and the final session) 1-hour parent education classes along with their teen where they will receive an overview of the skills that your teen is learning! This will help you to reinforce the concepts at home your teen is learning. After all, support from the adults in their lives is a key component to your teen’s overall success!
I’m Ready! How Do I Get Started?
Making the decision to seek help for your teen can be intimidating, which is why we offer a complimentary 20-minute phone consultation. When you’re ready to explore how the Teen DBT Therapy Group and/or our Family Therapy Treatment Program can benefit your entire family, give us a call at 623-680-3486, text 623 688-5115 or email info@crossroadsfcc.com.