Your teenage years can be years of intense emotions, interpersonal struggles, and a lot of stress. Pressures from school, pressures from friends, and pressures from home all add up. When you’re a sensitive person, these challenges can feel overwhelming. There can be times when your emotions and experiences feel so intense and extreme that you could use extra support to help manage them.
Do you feel like you don’t have control over your behavior sometimes, especially when you’re feeling intense emotions? Do you feel stuck in emotions far longer than you think you should? Are you hard on yourself, feeling worthless and empty? Do you experience extremes in feelings, to the extent that it disrupts your life and hurts your relationships? Do you ever feel that the stress of these intense emotions is too much to handle? Please know that you don’t have to handle all of this alone!
DBT for teenagers can be a lifeline
It can be tough to take the step to reach out, to ask for help. But some therapies are specifically set up to help teens just like you with intense emotions and the behaviors they inspire. Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) in particular is a therapy structure that provides a lot of support, with a lot of variety and skills at your fingertips when you need them, to help teens who deal with intense emotions. Coping in healthy ways is easier with DBT skills.
DBT-A for teens includes the whole family
In DBT, your family will also need to make changes, so you can all work together and communicate more openly, respectfully, and consistently. DBT-A for teens includes family participation in skills training, so you can get support at home as well as in therapy sessions. You truly won’t have to do any of this hard work alone, your therapists and family will be there with you to help and learn together.
DBT tips to help with stress from tough emotions
While you are weighing starting dialectical behavior therapy for teens in Washington, or if you’re getting started with DBT and are curious to know more, here are some tips that come right from DBT’s skill modules, to help you cope with intense emotions and difficult situations.
Mindfulness
Mindfulness means being present, in the moment. One of the first mindfulness components you learn in DBT for teenagers is observing. When you’re experiencing a painful emotion or thought, you’re coached on how to take a mental step back. With this practice, you can examine the thought, without judging it as good or bad, consider what it looks like, and how it feels. Let it pass you by without trying to control, soothe, or engage with it. In doing this, you reduce the power of the thought or emotion, and give yourself space to decide what you want to do, instead of relying on more extreme methods of coping.
Walking the middle path
This is a key component of DBT for teenagers and is a way for you and your caregivers—as well as your whole family—to connect.
Walking the middle path asks you to consider whether two opposite things can be true at the same time. Think about a recent interaction you’ve had with someone stressful. Can you see where they may have had a reasonable perspective? Can you see where you did too, even though you disagreed? Is there a middle path you could have walked together to reduce the stress of the interaction? This is just one example of walking the middle path, and once you grasp this idea, you’ll begin to see instances of opposing truths throughout your life, ultimately granting you a more balanced perspective.
Interpersonal effectiveness
Teenage years can feel explosive when it comes to relating to others. Intense feelings around relationships you have—and ones you don’t—can lead you to communicate or shut down in ways that don’t always help you.
When you’re struggling with relating to others, looking at your communication skills can help. Are you gentle in what you say? Are you remaining interested when others are talking? Are you validating their point of view, even if you don’t agree? Are you approaching them in an easy manner, to not escalate things? This quick assessment comes to us from the GIVE DBT skill. This, and other DBT interpersonal effective skills can help you navigate relationships in these hormonal years.
Distress tolerance
During these teen years, emotions can escalate quickly, and the anger, anxiety, sadness, and fear can feel all-consuming. When you’re deeply upset, one way to avoid emotions taking hold of your behavior is to choose an activity you enjoy and do it mindfully, paying attention to exactly what you’re doing. In this, you are at least partially able to distract from your intense emotions. You’re not avoiding your emotions, you’re simply reminding your body that living continues even when hard feelings happen and that these emotions are not in control, you are.
Emotional regulation
When you’re in the middle of difficult emotions, give this a try. Consider acting the exact opposite of how you want to act. Want to yell and scream? Talk in a whisper, and move gently. Have an urge to pick a fight with a friend? Walk away, giving yourself space. Have the urge to do something impulsive, that you know you’ll regret later? Call a friend and have them talk with you, so your opportunity to be impulsive is removed. See how opposite action can change how you relate to your intense emotions.
THIRA Health knows DBT helps teens when they need it the most
THIRA Health supports teens. We want to help you develop the skills you need in life, making it easier for you to manage difficult emotions and tough life situations. Our expert therapists have extensive experience and training in DBT, including DBT for teenagers, and we offer inpatient, partial hospitalization, and intensive outpatient programs in Washington to fully support you through emotional struggles, behavioral disorders, and mental health difficulties. Connect with us today, so you can get started on a life worth living.
