Signs Your Suffolk County Teen Might Benefit from DBT

Dialectical behavior therapy for adolescents (DBT-A)  is therapy adapted to support teens’ unique emotional, social, and mental health needs. Is your teen struggling in school, with friends, or at home? Are they exploding from emotional overwhelm, or shutting down from stress? DBT-A can help.

Mindfulness and walking the middle path

Teens’ minds are developing quickly, and their opportunities and responsibilities at Babylon High School are also rapidly expanding. All of this combined growth and expansion can leave a Babylon teen feeling scattered and struggling to focus.

A major benefit from DBT is structured, meaningful help for a scattered, disorganized teen, so they can sort through their conflicting feelings and competing opportunities to develop a better sense of the present moment through mindfulness skills.

Finding teen counseling in Long Island that helps your teen learn the Wise Mind mindfulness skill, for example, can encourage your scattered teen to focus on a balancing point between their emotion mind, which motivates them through feelings, and their logic mind, which motivates them through reasoning.

For a teen who is struggling to prioritize schoolwork when they want to play video games instead, their wise mind will help them find balance. Their logical mind knows schoolwork matters, but their emotional mind understands they’re feeling anxious and are in need of a break and some fun. By unifying both and walking the middle path with their wise mind, they can complete some school work, take a half-hour break, then resume school work. They don’t get sucked into their game, but they also don’t burn out from constant productivity, and so they find time to both relax and to fulfill their responsibilities.

Emotional regulation is a benefit of DBT

When your Suffolk County teen is really struggling with the fallout from emotional outbursts, or they’re struggling with sadness or fear that is holding them back from living their busy adolescent life, DBT-A emotional regulation skills can help them regain emotional balance, even when life feels particularly tough.

A great emotional regulation DBT skill for teens is Opposite Action. When your teen is ready to scream or slam the door, DBT will help them find regulation through choosing the opposite, like speaking softly while they ask for a minute to re-regulate, writing out what they’re feeling, or walking gently as they leave the room. 

Distress tolerance

When pressures from bullying, mental health, family chaos, or school push your Suffolk County teen to their limit, they may find they’re struggling with the ultimate distress, urges to self-harm, or suicidal ideation. 

DBT has repeatedly been shown to help teens who struggle with harmful and self-destructive thoughts and actions, and distress tolerance DBT skills can be particularly helpful in those dark moments where harm seems like the best option for a teen. 

The TIPP DBT skill is a great example. When your teen is ready to self-harm or is so overwhelmed by emotion that suicide starts to sound like relief, using cold temperatures, intense exercise, paced breathing, and paired muscle relaxation can help them use their body chemistry to reduce the severity of their emotional overwhelm. From this space of reduced distress, they can make different, healthier choices to cope. Concurrent parenting groups in our Long Island DBT-A program also help you as the parent feel equipped to help in these moments of dysregulation, with a shared language and shared tools.

Interpersonal effectiveness

Social opportunities for teens in Babylon are broader and more complex than ever, both in person and online. Teens often prioritize fitting in over their own wants, needs, and safety, and this can lead to difficult and sometimes dangerous social situations. The portions of their brain responsible for impulse control are also still developing, so risky behavior around alcohol, drugs, sex, car safety, and spending can be harder to say no to. 

For teens who struggle to assert themselves in the face of peer pressure, DBT for teens can help. Teens benefit from DBT interpersonal effectiveness skills through focus on self-respect and boundaries, helping them avoid over-agreeing without needing to resort to emotional blowups to get their point across. 

The FAST skill can help teens navigate these tricky social situations. By staying fair (to themselves and the other person), not apologizing (for totally normal boundaries), sticking to their values, and staying truthful (instead of downplaying their own needs or opinions), teens can develop the introspection needed to choose social opportunities that are both fun and safer.

Parental involvement means your teen won’t be the only one to benefit from DBT

Babylon, NY, teens are balancing between growing independence and still needing time with their parents. DBT-A recognizes that the home environment is crucial for teen success, and parents are included in DBT skill group therapy sessions with their teens, so you can learn helpful, practical DBT skills right alongside your teen.

Both you and your teen will benefit from DBT, using your newfound skills at home to create a family culture that supports your teen in healthy communication and emotional regulation, while also equipping you with parenting skills that help you defuse arguments, eliminate power struggles, and reduce your own frustration at the same time.