Mindfulness For Teen Depression: A Workbook For Improving Your Mood Download Pdfl
Janet Denzel
Before you read on, we thought you might like to download our three Emotional Intelligence Exercises for free. These science-based exercises will not only enhance your ability to understand and regulate your emotions but will also give you the tools to foster the emotional intelligence of your clients, students or employees.
The emotion regulation portion focuses on skills that benefit everyone who has emotions (i.e., every human!), but they are most beneficial for those struggling with mood or personality disorders, especially those with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD).
Mindfulness For Teen Depression: A Workbook For Improving Your Mood Download Pdfl
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One of the most important aspects of treatment is recognizing that negative or painful emotions are not inherently bad. Clients are encouraged to accept that they will undoubtedly experience negative emotions in their life, no matter how happy or well-balanced they may be.
People who are struggling with emotional dysregulation react to relatively mild negative events in an emotionally exaggerated manner; they may cry, scream, accuse, or blame those around them, or engage in passive-aggressive behaviors or other behaviors that can disrupt relationships and escalate conflict (PCH Treatment Center, n.d.).
The Emotion Regulation Questionnaire, or ERQ, is the most popular emotion regulation scale among psychology researchers. It was developed in 2003 by James Gross and John Oliver, based on five studies spanning the question development, validity and reliability, and structure of the questionnaire.
The scale is composed of 10 items, rated on a scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). The scale covers two facets, the Cognitive Reappraisal facet and the Expressive Suppression facet, and produces a separate score for each facet.
The Interpersonal Emotion Regulation Questionnaire, or IERQ, was developed to focus on the less attended interpersonal emotion regulation processes, rather than interpersonal processes. This scale was developed very recently (2016) by researchers Hofmann, Carpenter, and Curtiss.
Primary emotions are often completely natural reactions to things around us, like being sad when a loved one dies, or angry when someone is rude to us. However, secondary emotions are more dangerous and more within our control; we generally have more of a choice about how to respond to the fact that we are sad when someone dies.
Learning to better understand, recognize, and label emotions is an enormously helpful skill to have, and not only will it give you a good foundation for managing your emotions, but it will also help you understand and empathize with others.
Mindfulness can be described as living your life in the present instead of being stuck in the past or the future (Tartakovsky, 2015). Practicing mindfulness helps us become more aware of our thought patterns, our emotions, and how our thoughts and feelings affect our reactions to events.
STOPP is a strategy that will help you in the heat of the moment when you are dealing with intense emotions. It incorporates aspects of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), DBT, and mindfulness meditation to help you more effectively address and manage your emotional response to a challenging, difficult, or rage-inducing incident.
If you learn only one skill that will help you to more effectively regulate your emotions, this should be the one you learn. Learning how to pause in between an intense emotional reaction and your ensuing actions is one of the most valuable and life-changing skills that a person can have. Practice STOPPing, and you will be in a great position to manage your most difficult emotions.
When you are tempted to engage in an unhealthy activity, consider an activity that builds a sense of achievement instead. Try an activity that will result in you learning something new or developing a new skill, and allow yourself the space to build on it every day.
Doing something positive and fulfilling like this can not only increase your skills and boost your positive emotions but will also leave less room for negative emotions (Rolston & Lloyd-Richardson, n.d.).
Aside from the strategies and techniques listed above, there are also several helpful handouts, worksheets, and even images that can aid you in developing your DBT skills and improving your emotion regulation.
Interpersonal Skills Acronyms lists the DBT skills related to interpersonal effectiveness, including objective effectiveness, relationship effectiveness, and self-respect effectiveness, and also provides useful tips to put these skills into practice.
This exercise can help your client connect the dots between a galvanizing event and the reaction they had to the event. Among other things, it can be particularly useful for clients who would like to target their impulsive tendencies or urges. The full Exploring Action Tendencies worksheet can be accessed in the Positive Psychology Toolkit.
Emotions often come with a specific behavior, like arguments following anger, or withdrawal resulting from sadness. However, we often assume the relationship is from the emotion to behavior, rather than the other way around.
If you notice you are paying too much attention to the negative, pause and refocus onto the positive. You can practice by doing one small, positive activity every day, focusing on the good parts of the activity as you do it. Ignore minor issues and notice the enjoyment, pleasure, and fun!
Finally, it leaves room for the reader to draw a new emotion that they would like to feel, and give the emotion a label. This can be a fun activity for young children, and it encourages them to think about their emotions.
About the author Courtney Ackerman, MA, is a graduate of the positive organizational psychology and evaluation program at Claremont Graduate University. She is a researcher and evaluator of mental health programs for the State of California and her professional interests include survey research, wellbeing in the workplace, and compassion. How useful was this article to you? Not useful at all Very useful 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Submit Share this article:
Symptoms caused by major depression can vary from person to person. To clarify the type of depression your teen has, the doctor may use one or more specifiers, which means depression with specific features. Here are a few examples:
Several other disorders include depression as a symptom. An accurate diagnosis is the key to getting appropriate treatment. The doctor or mental health professional's evaluation will help determine if the symptoms of depression are caused by one of these conditions:
Most antidepressants are generally safe, but the FDA requires all antidepressants to carry a black box warning, the strictest warning for prescriptions. Though it's uncommon, some children, teens and young adults under 25 may have an increase in suicidal thoughts or behavior when taking antidepressants, especially in the first few weeks after starting or when the dose is changed.
Anyone taking an antidepressant should be watched closely for worsening depression or unusual behavior, especially when first beginning a new medication or with a change in dosage. If your teen has suicidal thoughts while taking an antidepressant, immediately contact your doctor or get emergency help.
For most teens who need an antidepressant, the benefits of taking an antidepressant outweigh any risks. Keep in mind that antidepressants are more likely to reduce suicide risk in the long run by improving mood.
Everyone's different, so finding the right medication or dose for your teen may take some trial and error. This requires patience, as some medications need several weeks or longer to take full effect and for side effects to ease as the body adjusts. Encourage your teen not to give up.
Carefully monitor your teen's use of medications. To work properly, antidepressants need to be taken consistently at the prescribed dose. Because overdose can be a risk for teens with depression, the doctor may prescribe only small supplies of pills at a time, or recommend that you dole out medication so that your teen does not have a large amount of pills available at once. Locking up all pills in the home is one measure families can take to reduce the risk of suicide.
If your teen is pregnant or breastfeeding, some antidepressants may pose an increased health risk to the unborn or nursing child. If your teen becomes pregnant or plans to become pregnant, make certain your teen talks to the doctor about antidepressant medications and managing depression during pregnancy.
Psychotherapy, also called psychological counseling or talk therapy, is a general term for treating depression by talking about depression and related issues with a mental health professional. Different types of psychotherapy can be effective for depression, such as cognitive behavioral therapy or interpersonal therapy.
In some teens, depression is so severe that a hospital stay is needed, especially if your teen is in danger of self-harm or hurting someone else. Getting psychiatric treatment at a hospital can help keep your teen calm and safe until coping skills are learned and a safety plan is developed.
Make sure that you and your teenager understand the risks as well as possible benefits if your teen pursues alternative or complementary therapy. Don't replace conventional medical treatment or psychotherapy with alternative medicine. When it comes to depression, alternative treatments aren't a good substitute for medical care.
Showing interest and the desire to understand your teenager's feelings lets him or her know you care. You may not understand why your teen feels hopeless or has a sense of loss or failure. But listen without judging and try to put yourself in your teen's position. Help build your teen's self-esteem by recognizing small successes and offering praise about competence.
The doctor or mental health professional will ask additional questions based on your teen's responses, symptoms and needs. Preparing and anticipating questions will help make the most of your appointment time.
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