DBT Therapy For Families Specialty Page

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DBT skills in Family Therapy

With an easy and consistent set of skills, Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) is an ideal way to make regular progress in personal and group therapy. Our Long Island and Manhattan family therapists are experts at applying these same skills to whole-family learning so that everyone can access the growth and change needed to move forward with acceptance.

In family therapy, you and your loved ones will work together with a therapist to foster healthy and safe connections within your relationships. Even with the best intentions, hard feelings and past emotions can get in the way of productive growth where family is concerned. Your family system will begin to learn new skills to help you effectively communicate and connect so that trust and love can take the center stage.

Find a sense of self together with Suffolk DBT

Our therapeutic approach to NY family therapy is focused on establishing DBT skills for children and teens by teaching parents new ways to overcome old barriers for a brighter future. When you work with Suffolk DBT, you can guarantee you’re getting care with empathetic expertise that’s invested in your whole family’s healing.

Family therapy is a great addition to individual therapy

If some of your family members are already receiving individual counseling, you may be unsure whether additional family services are a worthwhile investment for you. Family therapy offers a unique space where you can combine the growth you’ve accomplished in individual counseling sessions to meet your family in their comfort zone, combining relationship growth in a group setting that offers many benefits!

Family DBT Sessions…

Are a great addition to individual sessions or groups
Ensures everyone has shared knowledge of new skills
Reduces stress for parent and child(ren)
Allows development of individual and group skills
Focuses on improvement instead of past failure
Has clear expectations through structured goals and time frame

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The Dialectical Behavioral Therapy Difference

Children do not stop needing support when they become teens or young adults. Family groups expand and change over time.

As individuals and as a collective, your family will develop additional resources for every relationship by participating in DBT treatment designed to help you stay connected.

Make a Difference in Your Family

Families who choose to use therapy as a way to connect with one another are likely to see an increase in unity, effective communication, and share emotion regulation improvement. Behaviors that are concerning can be openly discussed, evaluated, and improved through a shared practice of growth that will leave everyone feeling more confident in their own life and feelings.

Building Healthier relationships with DBT skills in Family therapy

Family group therapy for teenage depression and other struggles can help every member of the family. Using Dialectical Behavior Therapy for families is different from individual therapy because it focuses on applying the techniques and ideas unique to DBT and making them a family practice. These same skills have a different practical approach and use when applied to groups who they connect.

Communication is an important part of productive relationships. At Suffolk DBT, we focus on finding family-forward ways to improve communication, reduce anxiety and create a more fulfilling life balance for every member of the family through five pillars of positive growth.

Distress tolerance skills

Understanding your emotions is not a linear process. Our therapists will support you in identifying the steps that create your emotional awareness to give you better control over how they happen in your daily life. Imagine a family conversation where each family member can identify, validate and express their own emotions so you can respond in kind!

Emotion regulation skills

High-stress situations are where our therapy tools are often most required and least accessible. In family Dialectical Behavior Therapy, you’ll be given the tools to improve your personal and collective response to stress by focusing on coping in crisis situations without making the situation worse. What you say and do affects your family members and the same holds true for what they say and do. Family resiliency knits together a community mindset with your personal accountability in managing your emotional response so that you retain the ability to assess and respond to high-stress moments without isolating yourself.

Interpersonal effectiveness skills

Better relationships with others apply within your family groups as well. When you improve your ability to ask for what you want and cultivate a shared respect for communicating that, everyone benefits from a healthier expression of need, preference and personal awareness. Good interpersonal relationships are effective, intentional and dynamic. Improving on the skills that help you accomplish this means stronger connections and a deeper sense of respect for yourself and others.

Mindfulness skills

Becoming mindful of yourself and others is an important skill to develop. It requires noticing thoughts, emotions, urges, both inside yourself and what is happening outside of yourself. Becoming mindful of one another requires practice . It is a skill that develops overtime yet requires practice. When each family member is aware of their own sense of self, the communal ability to respond with compassion ,clarity , and effectiveness becomes stronger. Improved mindfulness from family members contributes to a more empathetic, less judgmental, and supportive environment.

Middle path skills

When you distance yourself from black-and-white thinking processes, you begin to see a vibrant world of in-between. The same is true for shifting the way you think about the world. In family therapy, middle path thinking will be introduced as a way of combating extremes of emotional thinking.

Instead of catastrophizing every scenario or downplaying it so deeply that we invalidate ourselves and others, middle path thinking offers the chance to explore a more neutral experience of possibilities. These in-between spaces are often where breakthroughs lie in accessing our internal wisdom, peace, and calm.

Between-Sessions Phone Coaching

Although you will be learning skills in the context of your individual and skills group therapy treatment, communicating with your therapist between sessions can help you learn how to apply skills in real life situations when you are feeling stuck. Phone, text, or email consultation between sessions with the primary therapist is encouraged in DBT to help with this skills generalization. The availability of your primary therapist after office hours can be negotiated as part of your treatment.

DBT Consultation Team

All of our Suffolk DBT mental health clinicians meet together on a weekly basis to discuss our clients in a treatment team meeting format. We are able to receive feedback from each other that allows us to provide you with the best DBT treatment possible. Our goal is to maintain adherence to DBT principles, DBT skills and to offer caring, compassionate, competent and effective therapy to all of our clients.

Most clients who enter DBT treatment are asked to make a one-year commitment to attend both individual therapy and skills group training. Adolescent clients are asked to commit for 6 months of DBT treatment. In the one year of treatment for adults or 6 months for adolescents, hard work from both the client and the therapist is likely to result in significant improvement in clients overall functioning. We are here to support you online or at our Long Island or Manhattan cognitive behavioral therapy locations.

We currently offer the following groups:

Helping children and teens by teaching parents too

Families do not exist in a snapshot. Your relationships are a growing and changing dance of personalities and development that move through time and space alongside you. As children grow into teens, parents must learn new ways to be an example for their kids while allowing them to grow into their own identities. Interactions change shape: friends take the place of siblings and mentors overshadow parents. The methods that once worked have tarnished with age.

Family therapy for YOU

Instead of focusing on what adolescent children can change in their family lives, family therapy honors that our clients are complex and so are their relationships. We aim to offer strategies that support family connection alongside celebrating the sense of self for individuals.

Parents are as much of the process as the students in these sessions, where they can learn new skills and their child(ren) are the ones to teach them what they need. Under the guidance of our skilled therapists, ideas and tips become the skills families use to bring pride back to the center of their communication.

Frequently Asked Questions & Concerns About DBT-C

Not all my family members are willing to attend. Can we still benefit?

While family therapy is most effective when everyone shows up to do the work, there are still many benefits to working together with all consenting parties of a family group to create meaningful change. DBT skills for kids are more effective when the whole family learns those skills, too. Your therapist will take a customized approach to combine a variety of skills and methods in order to create a therapeutic approach ensuring everyone who can take part will experience positive growth in ways that will help you all to share, even if everyone isn’t willing or able to be present during our sessions.

How do I know if my family needs family therapy?

There is no flashing neon sign that will tell you what your family needs but if you’re asking, it’s worth reaching out to us to learn more. When your family relationships become tense with painful emotions or lack effective communication, it’s time to take a new approach to overcome these emotional issues before they become habits. Family therapy is a great way to re-connect and establish a dynamic of growth and trust using the shared language of DBT.

What’s different about DBT-C?

The techniques taught in DBT are an important part of adapting and overcoming emotional distress in their lives. Children are not miniature adults. Just as they require clothes and cutlery made in their size, their therapeutic support should be tailored to meet their needs. Dialectical Behavioral Therapy for pre-adolescent children (DBT-C) knows that!

Our integrative whole-family program is run by experienced therapists and is scaled to accomplish maximum results. DBT-C centers the experience of a child by seeking to ensure parents and family members attending sessions with them are taught the same skills. Parental involvement is a critical part of the DBT-C difference because, without the guidance of a parent who can effectively support and validate their new skills, children may be discouraged from applying them. Parental involvement is imperative as the environment needs to change and support their emotionally sensitive child. Parental emotion regulation is so important that it is the primary focus in DBT-C treatment.

From training to how we utilize session time, DBT-C teaches the same dialectical behavior therapy skills (problem-solving, emotional regulation, acceptance, coping techniques) in new ways to suit the needs of children and pre-teens by sharing them with the whole family to grow together. You can read more about the children and families who most often seek DBT-C here.

What kind of issues can DBT-Based Treatment help with?

Because DBT works on an established set of skills that are grouped together to help individuals and families create a structured response to the unstructured experience of emotions, this therapeutic approach is effective for many issues. Dialectical behavior therapy will benefit teens who are experiencing depression or social isolation, families who struggle to regulate their emotions, and parents who are at a loss for how to respond to these things.

DBT-based family therapy in Long Island and Manhattan is a responsive treatment that teaches a series of new techniques to access each of the pillars- emotional regulation, distress tolerance, middle path thinking, mindfulness, and interpersonal skills- in order to be an active part of those processes in your internal and family relationships.

Ready to speak with a licensed Mental Health Specialist?

Suffolk DBT proudly provides quality dialectical behavior therapy, a form of cognitive behavioral therapy, at their offices in Manhattan and Long Island, New York and online. Their experienced NYC therapists specialize in NY family therapy and serving teens, children, adults, and college students struggling with depression, borderline personality disorder, eating disorders, and self-harm. Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) skills and treatment can help you or your kids to manage emotions and work through life’s challenges.

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DBT Therapy For Families Specialty Page

Find a sense of self together with Suffolk DBT

Get A Free Mental Health Screening Today!

The Dialectical Behavioral Therapy Difference

Make a Difference in Your Family

We currently offer the following groups:

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