Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Teens

Understanding how we think can help change our behaviors and response to stress. As we learn to comprehend the negative thinking patterns that lead us down a path of negative thinking, people can learn to alter their thinking to help achieve better mental and behavioral outcomes.

The way that a teen sees the world can impact their actions and reactions for the rest of their lives. Understanding how their thought process shapes their behavior will help them achieve a desired behavior or response to external issues. Hillside Horizon offers Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for teens to help your child get through.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

What is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy?

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is a form of psychotherapy used to help treat many mental health disorders, such as substance use disorder, eating disorders, post-traumatic stress disorder, and depression. This approach to treatment approach focuses on patterns in abnormal thinking that lead people to have distorted beliefs, which can cause irrational emotions or reckless behaviors that could lead to the development of other mental health disorders.

CBT aims to gain control over one’s thoughts/feelings relationship with their thinking by noticing when these negative thought patterns happen, so you may change them accordingly, then replacing those old harmful thought patterns with something more positive and constructive.

Benefits of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Teens?

Types of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

CBT is not one specific therapeutic approach because a wide range of therapeutic modalities falls under this classification; the combination of interventions used depends on your therapist and what issues are being treated.

Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy
Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)
Cognitive Therapy

Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy

This complex form of treatment is based on teachings from ancient and modern philosophers. The goal behind it all? To help people rid themselves of negative beliefs which lead them towards bad actions, replacing these feelings with positive ones so they can live happier lives overall.

Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)

Dialectical Behavioral Therapy is a type of therapeutic method that utilizes many different techniques. One unique feature of this therapy would be its focus on validation and self-acceptance; the therapist helps patients accept their negative thoughts/feelings as normal, which increases the likelihood of being able to move on from the thoughts and make progress.

Cognitive Therapy

When a person has negative thoughts or feelings, it can impact their day-to-day life. Cognitive therapists educate the patient about how their thoughts, emotions, and behaviors influence one another. Once this interaction is understood, they move on to skills training to help augment that knowledge.

The main goal of these sessions is to identify existing problems which are then disempowered by helping clients gain control over their outcomes.

The 5 Components of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

The National Registry of Evidence-Based Programs and Practices has broken down dialectical behavior therapy into five components:

Improving the cognitive ability of the patient through skills training
Utilization of a personalized treatment plan
Generalizing the experience of the patient in therapy to other aspects of life
Motivation by reinforcing adaptive behaviors
Implementing a therapeutic team as part of the consult

The Steps of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

Cognitive-behavioral therapy is generally a shorter-term treatment option compared to other types of therapy. However, it is a step-based treatment approach where each phase must be successfully completed before moving on to the next phase:

Functional Analysis – The stage of CBT where the individual learns to identify problematic thought processes
Actual Behaviors – The stage of CBT where new skills are developed and applied to real-world situations
Behavioral Change – The final phase of CBT that encourages an individual to take steps towards developmental growth

Adolescents and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

CBT has been shown to be effective in treating adolescents and teens due to the underdevelopment of emotional mechanisms that guide most teenagers’ decision-making processes.

The data-driven modified approach used by cognitive therapists gives this technique an edge when it comes down to helping young people who suffer from depression or other disorders due to the fact that they’re still learning what behaviors and thinking work best for them to cope with what they are going through.

Hillside Horizon for Teens has many different treatment modalities for a broad spectrum of mental health disorders, and we encourage you to call to talk to one of our mental health professionals about some options that might be right for your family.