DBT Group for Middle Schoolers
Developing healthy coping skills to manage emotions and improve relationships
Being a teen or pre-teen can be tough. My Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) group members will learn how to live in the present moment, find healthy ways to handle worry or stress, appropriately regulate their emotions, and improve connections and relationships with others.
I’m passionate about helping my clients learn more about themselves and providing them with practical tools to navigate the path to adulthood. All in an atmosphere of trust, empathy compassion, honesty, and humor.
DBT skills are powerful tools because they can help you relate and respond to emotions and situations more effectively. DBT is a skills-based therapy that is comprised of four modules. Each group session will introduce new helpful skills from the current module and build on the previous skills.
While mindfulness and distress tolerance skills help you work toward acceptance of your thoughts and behavior, emotion regulation and interpersonal effectiveness skills help you work toward changing your thoughts and behaviors. You will learn concrete skills that you can apply outside of the group to create lasting change in your life.
Mindfulness
It’s critical to develop awareness and acceptance regarding what is happening in the present moment. Mindfulness will help you to be aware of, and accept, your thoughts and feelings without any judgment. These are known as the “What” skills of mindfulness. The “How” skills of mindfulness will show you how to balance these emotions and thoughts with things you know to be true. Using mindfulness skills on a regular basis will help you accept your thoughts and feelings for what they are without allowing them to completely control your reactions and responses.
Distress Tolerance
Distress Tolerance skills teach you how to move through painful circumstances that are beyond your control without making things worse. Anxiety often revolves around situations that you cannot change or fix, and so distress tolerance skills help you navigate these anxiety-provoking situations effectively and efficiently.
Emotion Regulation
At times it may feel like your emotions control you. This is when emotion regulation skills are useful because they teach you how to recognize emotions, increase positive emotions, become more mindful of your emotions, avoid giving in to emotional urges, and solve problems in helpful ways.
Interpersonal Effectiveness
These skills help you to strengthen and repair healthy relationships, navigate social situations with greater ease, and find and build new relationships. You’ll learn to be skillful in getting what you need and want from others, as well as learning to say no to unwanted requests. These skills are especially helpful for addressing Social Anxiety.
Please reach out at 678.403.0112 extension 25 if you believe your teen or pre-teen would benefit from a nonjudgemental and warm environment in which they can have a space to learn new skills, understand themselves in a deeper way, and find community!