Online DBT Therapy is the Solution You’ve Been Looking for If…
By Jeanette Lorandini
If you’re looking for online therapy in New York, Suffolk DBT—a practice that specializes in Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)—might be right for you. When working with an experienced clinician, online DBT therapy can be revolutionary, especially for vulnerable groups. In today’s blog, we’ll outline the benefits of online DBT therapy for people with BPD, teens (particularly girls) who may struggle with emotional regulation and sharing openly, and people who have panic attacks.
Emotions are at the Core of Human Experience
Our emotions play significant roles in our lives. They can influence and be influenced by minor and major life events, interpersonal relationships, and social interactions. No one is exempt from experiencing intense emotions from time to time, which is why having emotional regulation skills is crucial. But emotional regulation can be challenging for individuals with mental and emotional health impaired by conditions like borderline personality disorder (BPD) or panic disorder. Likewise, emotion regulation can be challenging for young people dealing with growing pains as they navigate adolescence and teenhood.
Although they may be uncomfortable, emotions are a normal part of life
Now and then, we all may experience some hardships and adverse events in life, like calling it quits with our significant other, not getting a promotion at work, or being laid off or fired. Even the experience of being overworked in your career or studies can cause significant effects on your well-being.
With negative experiences often comes unpleasant emotional states. Anger. Sadness. Sometimes it might be anxiousness, and other times, weariness. Embarrassment, fear, guilt. The list goes on. While it’s normal to have these experiences and feelings from time to time, such emotions can become problematic when they persist, worsen, and impair your daily functioning.
Suffolk DBT Offers Online Therapy in New York
If you or someone you know constantly struggles with intense emotions, and you’ve been looking for ways to cope, consider reaching out to a mental health professional.
At Suffolk DBT in New York, experienced clinicians provide online DBT therapy for BPD, DBT for panic attacks, and counseling for teenage girls that recognizes and considers how gender, society, and interpersonal interactions can impact your mental and emotional health. The DBT skills learned in these sessions can help you exercise healthy control over your feelings and behavior.
When do emotions become problematic?
Intense emotional experiences become problematic when:
- You develop increasingly negative feelings about yourself and others.
- Your relationships with others feel unstable.
- Your identity becomes rattled.
- You’re filled with intense self-doubt and insecurity.
When these things start to add up, it’s hard to get settled, cope, and overcome these negative feelings.
When is it time to seek help?
If you’re living on edge, constantly feeling frustrated and angry, and every minor inconvenience feels like the last straw, yet you’re unsure how to handle these intense emotions, you may need to see a mental health professional. Specifically, a mental health professional specializing in online dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT) can encourage healthy acceptance and change.
At Suffolk DBT, clinicians who specialize in DBT give clients the support and treatment they need in various ways for various reasons, whether they’re providing online DBT therapy for BPD, DBT for panic attacks, or counseling for teenage girls. Consider starting DBT sessions to regain healthy control of your emotions instead of allowing them to control you.
Dialectical Behavioral Therapy: What is It?
DBT is a specialized form of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). Dr. Marsha Linehan developed this therapy form in New York after observing that traditional CBT wasn’t effective for treating patients with borderline personality disorder (BPD) and chronic suicidal ideation. This evidence-based treatment is specifically adapted to help individuals who experience intense emotions. DBT is excellent at helping individuals who have learned to mange their emotions—often through harmful behaviors and habits—find healthier alternatives.
Efficacy trials in academic research and quasi-experimental studies, as well as effectiveness trials in community practice settings, demonstrate and support how DBT is effective for mental and behavioral health conditions like:
- Borderline personality disorder
- Anxiety disorders
- Eating disorders
- Depression
- Post-traumatic stress disorder
- Substance use disorder and addiction
- Self-harm and suicidal ideation and behaviors
You should consider online DBT sessions if…
If You Experience Strong Emotions You Can’t Cope With
Does this sound familiar? Life consists of ups and downs, twists and turns, and much more. But what if life feels like a rollercoaster with downs you can’t come up from and endless twists and turns? What if distressing situations cause you to experience unhealthy amounts of paranoia?
Maybe you’re always distressed and angry, and as a result, get offended easily. Your inability to cope with these intense negative feelings leads you to act impulsively and recklessly in ways that physically, mentally, or emotionally harm you and others. Because of this, others may find it hard to be around you, putting rifts in or flat-out ending your relationships. These severed ties tend to make things worse because you’ve always had a hard time being alone and an intense fear of abandonment.
If any of this sounds familiar, you may be dealing with the symptoms of borderline personality disorder (BPD)—a body and mind condition. BPD symptoms typically manifest in the teenage years and gradually continue into adulthood. Hallmarks of BPD include
- Mood swings
- Anger
- Impulsiveness
- Impaired self-awareness
- Struggling to understand others’ perceptions
- Suicidal thoughts
One of the most significant characteristics of BPD is the struggle with self-regulation. Self-regulation refers to managing one’s emotions, thoughts, and behaviors in ways that produce positive outcomes, such as good relationships and self-esteem boosts. This lack of self-regulation can contribute to unstable relationships filled with quick-changing, drastic feelings; extreme, unpredictable mood swings; lingering feelings of worthlessness and emptiness; and feeling out of touch with reality.
Online DBT Therapy for BPD Can Help You With Emotional Regulation Skills
BPD can take a toll on an individual’s life and daily functioning. People can become distressed and suspicious about the events and individuals in their lives. They begin questioning other people’s intentions and distrusting them, experiencing endless paranoia. The stress can be too much to bear, but lacking healthy self-regulation and coping skills can make a person lose touch with reality, becoming disassociated. Such disassociation can make someone feel spaced out and foggy or like they’re living outside their own body. Still, there’s hope for individuals with BPD.
Through online DBT therapy sessions for BPD, clients learn to:
- Accept, control, and change emotions. By learning emotional regulation skills, clients can accept negative, unwanted emotions when they start. Acceptance and knowing how to regulate such dysregulated emotions can empower people to change them, stopping them.
- Communicate effectively and respectfully. BPD can make trusting and interacting with others challenging. Learning interpersonal effectiveness skills can enable a person to initiate and maintain healthy relationships and connections. Such skills empower you to set appropriate boundaries, work to solve conflicts, and express yourself in healthy ways that are respectful of yourself and the other person.
If You’re Constantly in an Anxious State of Panic
Clients also benefit from learning emotional regulation skills in DBT for panic attacks. Intense emotions are not only associated with BPD, they can stem from and cyclically contribute to anxiety and distress. Anxiety disorders go beyond normal anxiousness felt before a test, interview, or first date. They can make a person feel like their mind is always on. These disorders can be characterized by persistent, intrusive, unwanted mental, emotional, and physical symptoms that can be hard to manage. Panic disorder, specifically, can be characterized by panic attacks in which individuals experience
- Chest pains and rapid heartbeat
- Nausea and stomachaches
- Shaking and sweating
- Headaches
- Disturbed sleep
Why Online Therapy Using DBT for Panic Attacks Helps
In online DBT for panic attacks at Suffolk DBT, clients learn how to self-soothe as part of employing distress tolerance skills.
Self-soothing is a sensory experience that incorporates your five senses. It’s cuddling with a pillow or pet; listening to music you enjoy; lighting scented candles, eating your favorite food; or surrounding yourself with colors and images that comfort you.
Self-soothing techniques allow people to reduce their stress levels and enter a calm psychological and physiological state. Effectively managing your touch, hearing, smell, taste, and sight gives you healthy control over your body and mind. You’ll be able to calm yourself down in the face of stress without needing to resort to drug use, alcohol consumption, stress eating, cutting and self-injuring, and other harmful behaviors.
If It’s Hard to Keep Up with Teenage Changes
Intense emotions and confusion don’t only occur for people with BPD or anxiety disorders. Adolescence and teenage years are typically characterized by physical, mental, emotional, social, and behavioral changes. It’s a time of critical social and interpersonal development. During the teen years, it’s common for young people to experience the following:
Identity formation and self-discovery
Their first job or getting a driver’s license
Their first love and developing romantic, sexual interests
Experiments with alcohol and drugs, in some cases
Many teenagers begin figuring out the people, hobbies, interests, and causes that matter to them. All while dealing with sudden, sometimes embarrassing physical changes and intense emotions that seem like they can’t be turned off. While some of these changes are typical growing pains, others come from society. Such as unprecedented dangers like cyberbullying, having to go viral to be seen as likable and popular, or trying to fit social media beauty standards. Measuring one’s looks against the media’s depiction of ideal beauty is commonly a challenge for teen girls, specifically.
Why Counseling for Teenage Girls is Helpful
Counselors for teenage girls at Suffolk DBT understand that young girls grow up receiving mixed messages about women’s roles and worth in society. These messages can come with tints or blatant influences of sexism and misogyny, making adolescence and teenhood more troubling for many teen girls. This and other societal factors likely contribute to differences in teen girls’ and boys’ mental health. In counseling for teen girls at Suffolk DBT, teenagers receive DBT that empowers them to recognize how their emotions, thoughts, and behaviors impact their emotional and mental state and decision-making. DBT skills training equips teens with practical methods for overcoming stress and harmful thoughts and behaviors.
Gain Emotional Regulation Skills in Online DBT Therapy
Online DBT therapy at Suffolk DBT encourages New Yorkers to cultivate positive change while validating their current feelings without judging themselves. Feeling more at ease and in one’s skin while implementing the skills learned in online DBT therapy for BPD, DBT for panic attacks, and counseling for teenage girls can take time, patience, and dedication. But it’s worth the effort to improve your well-being. It’s worth it to learn how to be kinder, more compassionate, and more helpful to yourself even when your emotions, thoughts, and urges are hurtful or seem to be too much to bear.
When you’re ready to learn these life-changing skills, reach out to us at Suffolk DBT to regain healthy control of your body, mind, and life and how you live it.
