DBT Therapy Orange County

The aim of DBT (Dialectical Behavioral Therapy) is to help teens learn adaptive skills by talking and reaching an agreement logically. DBT can be done through individual therapy, group therapy, or phone coaching therapy. Developed by Marsha M. at the University of Washington to help suicidal individuals, DBT has been hailed by many as a highly effective behavioral therapy for borderline personality disorder and people with intense emotions.

DBT is an offshoot of CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy) but was modified to treat people with extremely intense emotions. At OC Teen Center, we focus on using DBT therapy in Orange County to help struggling teens recognize and positively change damaging thoughts like suicide, eating disorders, depressive states, and destructive emotions.

Our DBT Therapy Services for Teens

DBT involves four steps. Our behavioral health treatment in Southern California follows these four modules.

• Mindfulness

We teach this critical skill early on when your teen is still in their skill group. It involves being fully aware of the moment and living it, but not in a destructive way. DBT is built on mindfulness, and patients can’t move to the next level without grasping it.

Mindfulness helps your child accept and bear any overwhelming emotions they have in their day-to-day encounters. And acceptance is the foundation of mindfulness. With time, our clients learn to accept all circumstances, even in situations where their emotions become too intense.

• Interpersonal Effectiveness

Our leading DBT therapists in SoCal usually recommend interpersonal effectiveness to follow mindfulness. Once your kid accepts situations as they are, it’s time to learn personal interactions, personal relationships, and stressors or conflicts that arise from relating with others.

Here, teens learn how to request or ask for what they want with self-respect and courtesy. Your teenager is also taught how to communicate with clarity and tone down their extreme reactions when in disagreement.

• Distress Tolerance

Our Orange County DBT treatment center has distress tolerance as the next step. In this stage, we focus on acceptance and change. Unlike the acceptance taught in mindfulness, here we go deeper. We give your kid four basic techniques to handle any crisis. These include distracting oneself, self-soothing, thinking of the benefits and disadvantages, and improving the stressful situation.

Distress tolerance enables your child to accept life’s ups and downs. Cliché as it sounds, some people can’t accept the negative aspects of life, causing them to blame others.

• Emotion Regulation

This is the final stage, and we have the best DBT psychologists in Orange County to guide your teen through the process. It’s the last but equally essential part of the entire program. Intense people have a hard time learning how to master their reactions. If anger, depression, anxiety, or frustrations disorientate your teen, this is the ultimate step for them.

Here to Help Your Teenager

At OC Teen Center, we aim to assist teens and young adults to live a better and more fulfilling life by providing top-of-the-line DBT therapy in Orange County. Our process involves step-by-step guidance to give your teen the tools they need to interact, agree, and disagree. It’s important to steer your teenager on the right path so that they can enjoy life well into adulthood. Contact us to get your teen the help he/she needs before:800-478-0233.