Find New Ways to Manage Your Anxiety and Depression
Innova Mercy provides Cognitive Behavioral Therapy to help teenagers heal from the trauma that also creates harmful thought patterns.
What Is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Teens?
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for teens, or CBT for teens for short, is a form of talk therapy that focuses on changing negatively impacting thoughts. Teen CBT has been proven to treat various conditions, most notably anxiety, depression, and insomnia. At the very heart of this therapy, CBT for teens is built on the idea that the core belief of humans can be divided into three categories:
- Beliefs about self
- Beliefs about others
- Beliefs about the future
Problems begin to arise when teens develop flawed core beliefs in these categories and begin to learn patterns that fit within the negative core beliefs the teens have created.
4 Examples of Cognitive Distortions Identified by CBT
These negative ways of thinking mentioned earlier are known as ‘cognitive distortions.’ Disorders such as Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) and Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) can develop due to these cognitive distortions. Here are examples of distortions identified in CBT for teens.
Overgeneralizing
This distortion involves using a single incident to create a rule. Phrases like “never” or “always” are often used by teens to describe a “lesson learned” from the event they experienced.
Magnifying Negatives
This distortion pertains to over-exaggerating negative consequences. This is seen when teens share a bad experience and make it seem worse than it was.
Minimizing Positives
This distortion occurs when a teen greatly downplays a positive effect or experience. They would oftentimes do this while also maximizing their negative experiences.
Catastrophizing
This distortion is when a teen always assumes the worst of any given situation, most especially for situations that have yet to happen or are out of the teen’s control.
Trauma-Focused Teen CBT at Innova Mercy
Teen CBT can be accomplished in an individual or group setting at Innova Mercy. Therapy sessions include using worksheets to help challenge a participating teen’s cognitive distortions and find ways to replace them with balanced and healthy beliefs. As teens become able to recognize and label these negative patterns, it slowly becomes easier for them to replace these maladaptive thoughts with adaptive ones.
Innova Mercy seeks to help teens identify and change life-disrupting thought patterns that can influence their behaviors and emotions through different treatments and therapies, like teen CBT. To learn more about our other treatments, you can read about them here.
Speak with an Admission Specialist Today
Do not hesitate to contact Innova Mercy if you want to learn more about Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, the nature of the sessions, and how it will help your struggling teenager. All calls to our treatment center are free and confidential.