How Can Therapy Help My Child?

Children have good and bad days just like us adults and it is important to work with children to ensure they gain the best outcomes in life. Talking therapies is the way forward to help them with managing their emotional and problematic though patterns, however, many parents ask “How can therapy help my child?”

Are you unsure what the child therapy options are?

We would recommend Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) and Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT).

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT)

CBT is an evidence-based therapy which can assist to reduce the distress your child is feeling and help them to improve their ability to function. CBT focuses on the thoughts and feelings which children are having and are impacting their behaviour or mental health.

Children do not need to have received a diagnosis of a mental health condition to begin talking therapies. Children do have negative thoughts at times so we are looking to replace their negative thought patterns with more productive ones.

Using CBT allows the child to become more aware of their feelings, their behaviour and how they act on these, looking at these will help them to view difficult situations more clearly so they can respond more effectively in future situations.

CBT can be affective in children with numerous conditions such as:

• ADHD
• Anxiety
• Mood Disorders
• Trauma and PTSD
• Along with many more.

A study in 2018, found that 60% of children using CBT for anxiety and mood disorders recovered well with a significant decrease in symptoms following on from treatment (Kodal et al, 2018).

Research has also shown that children who are experiencing anxiety and mood disorders are also less like to relapse when using CBT as a treatment.

Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT)

DBT allows the children to deal with two things at once, first being acceptance of their feelings which incorporates CBT and the second allowing them to learn how to think about things so they can change their feelings using mindfulness.

DBT allows parents to work with their child to learn coping skills to give them the opportunity to reduce their emotional and problematic thought patterns. These coping skills allow the child to handle their emotions so their smile can re-appear on their face and enjoy themselves when in the presence of their friends and family.

So what are the benefits of therapy for children?

Using this form of therapy will allow the child to build a healthy lifestyle and work towards self-fulfillment.

To do this children find the balance between accepting their behaviour and changing it. A study has found that working with children and parents, DBT provides them with tools to cope and children reported a decrease in depressive symptoms when using those (Perepletchikova et al, 2011).

Here to help

Are you having thoughts around whether your child needs support or whether they will naturally outgrow their emotional outbursts?

Children who are angry or irritable most days of the week will benefit from receiving treatment sooner rather than later. Using a therapy like DBT can prevent mental health conditions in the future as emotional regulation is the core target treatment (Zalewski et al , 2018).

Need some help?

We hope that you have found this article useful. We do offer support tailor-made for children, teenagers, adults, families and couples. If you feel like this is something that will benefit your children, please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any queries or call us on 07801 079555 and discover how we can help.

References

Kodal, A., Fjermestad, K., Bjelland, I., Gjestad, R., Öst, L. G., Bjaastad, J. F., … & Wergeland, G. J. (2018). Long-term effectiveness of cognitive behavioral therapy for youth with anxiety disorders. Journal of anxiety disorders, 53, 58-67.

Perepletchikova, F., Axelrod, S. R., Kaufman, J., Rounsaville, B. J., Douglas‐Palumberi, H., & Miller, A. L. (2011). Adapting dialectical behaviour therapy for children: Towards a new research agenda for paediatric suicidal and non‐suicidal self‐injurious behavi, ours. Child and adolescent mental health, 16(2), 116-121.

Zalewski, M., Lewis, J. K., & Martin, C. G. (2018). Identifying novel applications of dialectical behavior therapy: considering emotion regulation and parenting. Current Opinion in Psychology, 21122-126.