Describing emotions can be tough. How do we know exactly how we feel? How can we put our thoughts into words and how can we make sense of it all?
This can be a challenging task for anyone, but specifically can be difficult for teens as so many changes are happening. One way we help teens with this task is through helping them identify patterns.
In DBT group, we challenge teens to take a look at their own patterns. This could be avoidance, self-harm, isolation and or many more behavioral patterns.
Let’s use the example of avoidance and what leads to avoidance by trying to understand this cycle. When we avoid situations, the common emotion that teens experience is anxiety.
First, let’s look at the prompting event. Something has to happen or trigger the feeling of anxiety. This could be an increase in exams for the week, social events or a public speaking assignment. Your teen may feel a wave of intense anxiety once the trigger is known or in the foreseeable future.
Secondly, your teen begins to interpret that situation. Let’s run with the idea of public speaking. Your teen may interpret this situation as:
I don’t want others to think I am dumb.
What if I mess up?
I don’t want to embarrass myself.
What if they notice my voice shaking?
The list can go on and on but your teen begins to create a cycle of “what ifs” and interpretes different ways of understanding the situation.
Next, we prompt teens to take a look at their emotional experiences by looking at their body sensations, and urges. When someone thinks about public speaking they may:
Experience their heart racing
Urges to leave the scene
Have a pit in their stomach
Notice sweaty palms
In addition, we encourage teens to notice their emotional expression. What does their body language and facial expression say? Oftentimes, we show how we are feeling on our face and ask teens to take a look at how they present when feeling emotions.
Lastly, we ask our teens to look at the aftereffects of the situation. What are the memories, thoughts and physical sensations that occur after the emotional event? After public speaking your teen may:
Feel uncomfortable for the rest of the day
Experience racing thoughts replaying the situation
Notice a tension headache for a duration of time
Isolate to their bedroom
Teens have a hard time describing these series of experiences but helping them slow down to walk through the model of emotions may be helpful in acknowledging their story of emotions.