Rejection

Sunday, some age 9-12 neighbor kids ganged together and rejected a bigger, awkward tween boy.  While walking Miss Wendy, we witnessed his agony and rage at their behavior as they screamed and ran away, hurling insults at the kid, locking themselves in family SUV, sticking their tongues out, shouting, ‘Nah, nah, nah, nah, big goofball’ –and other, shocking language, their parents would have surely censored. The dog was visibly upset. It prompted a lot of memories from childhood, and thinking about a big topic: rejection.

‘LuAnn’ has a history of getting angry at people and cutting them off.  Out-right rejection.  This might be considered an immature way of dealing with interpersonal conflict, which resulted in escalating anger directed back towards her and her family.  The ‘rejected’ count included an older sibling, a sister-in-law, an uncle, various friends, additional kin, and even a child for a year or two.  Rejection is a form of emotional blackmail or emotional abuse.  One always wonders what led to this response; what made this the ‘go to’ way of dealing with disagreement.  The behavior is often exhibited in families, when it has become systemic.  LuAnn’s daughter behaves in exactly the same way, but fails to see it in herself, and won’t discuss it.  There are times when it is in a person’s best interest to step back from a relationship, a self-protective, last choice, when abuse or emotional trauma are too much to bear. After ‘Wayne’, an addict had stolen from nearly everyone he knew, no one wanted to see him again. He died alone, of an overdose, far from home, rejected by everyone, who had tried everything.

‘Todd’ was in a relationship with male partner for several years, completely estranged from the family who condemned his orientation and choice.  The rejection hurt especially bad coming from those who had professed to love him (but only on their terms), that he required extensive therapy. The media has featured many stories of teens feeling suicidal from the sting of rejection for expressing an alternative gender orientation.

Rejection can take many forms. Sometimes it manifests as angry outbursts from deep-seated emotional pain against the person or persons who caused it, or anyone who represents/reminds one of that person.  A person might harbor simmering hostility towards the abusive partner of a parent, and subsequently anyone who triggered that rage, unwittingly or not. Untreated, it can become toxic. Trauma can be involved on both sides of a seriously disrupted relationship. But it’s not hopeless. In the Home Alone Christmas movie, the elderly man’s relationship is restored with his children, and healing takes place.  The Prodigal Son is a well-known theme from ancient times, where the son returns to his father, apologizes and begs acceptance. That’s probably the exception rather than the rule; a standard for all time.

For ‘Lynette’, rejection moved to a symbolic form of revenge, cutting her ex-husband’s photos out of family pictures. Her transition age son shrugged and shook his head. ‘He’s still my dad,’ the teen said, with an odd look on his face. It was no accident he’d downloaded and listened to an old school (’89) rock song recently by Don Henley, ‘The Heart of the Matter’ [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xezg3z5IE8I]   Knowing there would be holidays, graduation, wedding, and probably grand-children in the future made him sad, just thinking about what used to be and was to come.  Rejection is a complex topic.  There are ideas how to deal with differing aspects of rejection.

Read more here:

http://ideas.ted.com/why-rejection-hurts-so-much-and-what-to-do-about-it/

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/freedhearts/2015/11/10/to-reject-ones-child-is-the-worst-transgression/

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-squeaky-wheel/201307/10-surprising-facts-about-rejection

http://www.wikihow.com/Handle-Rejection

http://www.apa.org/monitor/2012/04/rejection.aspx

http://kidshealth.org/en/teens/rejection.html

Check out the Lyrics:   http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/donhenley/theheartofthematter.html

Foster care teens vulnerable to trafficking

Some 18,000 to 20,000 missing children incidents are reported every year. Of homeless, runaway or ‘throwaway youth’, a third are lured into prostitution or offered money for sex within 48 hours of leaving home.  Of the 500,000 children in the U.S. in some form of foster care, vulnerability is especially high, according to Brent Currence of the Ohio Missing Persons Unit of the State Attorney General Mike DeWine’s Office, Bureau of Criminal Investigation at last week’s Ohio Chief Probation Officer’s Conference.

Essentially, human trafficking amounts to slavery, whether its labor trafficking, compelled service, or sex trafficking.  Labor trafficking might happen from debt bondage. Compelled service could be in childcare, domestic  or janitorial work, agriculture, garment work, street peddling, construction trades or manufacturing, or in the restaurant trades.  People might be recruited by newspaper ads for modeling jobs or other fake employment agencies with offers too good to be true.  Acquaintances or family might recruit the victim and then there are abduction stories as naïve folks are lured through front businesses, he explained.

His presentation explored risk factors which  include neglect or abuse at home, a troubled home life, mental disability, or not having a positive adult role model.  For those trafficked into labor, many have experienced high unemployment,  discrimination, an environment of crime, lived in poverty, or come from a country with political conflict, corruption, or where labor trafficking is commonly practiced.  Frequent moves, high density living environment, restricted movement/communication or requiring an interpreter to be the intermediary might be indicators of trafficking activity. Not having access to one’s identity papers-driver’s license, social security card/number, birth certificate, cell phone, bank account, or personal possessions could be a red flag. Did you ever wonder about a Central American roofing crew who arrived in the same van, worked in blistering heat with two short 15 minute breaks, didn’t speak English, and were controlled by a tough crew boss?  Perhaps the kitchen crew in an Asian or Mexican restaurant made you wonder, or the unlikely couple in a convention hotel- a young girl with an older man.

Teen runaways are vulnerable.  Naïve teens often fall for false advertising, modeling, acting or dancing opportunities or ads on social media where they share photos or other personal information.  A pimp might attempt to gain the child’s trust and pretend he cares and will look after them.  Often a pimp- or his female recruiter will lavish the victim with treats like shopping trips, visits to salons or out to eat or drink.  The victim is systematically isolated from people they know until they are forced to rely on the pimp. The teen is gradually lured into sex, or groomed to become an eventual escort  through psychological –and sometimes physical control.  Often, they’re controlled through violence and later, through drugs-upon which they become dependent.  Sometimes  photos or private information is used as threat or blackmail.  The internet has opened a new world of potential cyber-victimization.  A teen could be tracked via their cell phone GPS.

You might notice a victim by their canned responses, the hovering presence of a person who seems to control them, or by the child exhibiting hesitant or fearful behavior.  They might have tattoos (branding), new uncharacteristic clothing, be evasive, or fail to make eye contact.  They might have bruises and are frequently absent or out of contact.  Often, victims are brainwashed or manipulated; told false promises or lied to that this is a good way to improve their life, or ‘its only a time or two’.  Though they might feel shame, they compensate by becoming boisterous or develop an attitude.

Currence shared several stories. Two young teen girls were chatted up at a Dairy Queen not far from home by a man.  His female accomplice was in the front seat of a van.  It began to rain and they were led to believe it was the father/parents of a friend.  They got in the car when he offered a ride; but the child safety locks clicked.  They were abducted and raped, forced into trafficking.  Sexual trafficking might involve 8 to 10 contacts a day.  Currence’  presentation stated that:  * 1/3 of women entered prostitution before age 15 (hardly consenting) and 62% before their 18^th birthday; *96% of prostitutes who entered prostitution as juveniles were runaways;  *72% of these juveniles suffer from sexual and physical abuse;  *Develop a dissociative personality regarding normal intimacy and boundaries.  Further, 82% of these women are physically assaulted; 83% of these women have been raped-27% by multiple assailants; 35% have sustained broken bones and 47% sustain traumatic brain injuries. Hardly, the ‘Pretty Woman’ movie.  Nor is going to a party where the teen is drugged and gang raped.

He said, it’s difficult gaining a victim’s trust even for professionals.  Safety and medical care are important to them, and re-assurance. Often, victims have very basic needs –such as a safe place to go, housing, clothing, food, treatment, legal help, connection with benefits and job training or further education. Substance abuse is likely to be an issue, and learning how to take care of themselves and plan for a future.

The audience saw photos of trafficked girls, before and after.  These were images of school age kids in one frame, and sorry ‘lights out’ trafficked women, some clearly addicts, others looking utterly beaten into submission, defeated  by a hard life.  Slavery is illegal, whatever type, Currence asserted.

Resources:

What would you do?  Watch this video what happens when a 16 year old girl meets up with a guy she met online. He turns out to be a predator.  http://higherperspectives.com/wwyd/

Gracehaven was founded in 2008 to address the huge need for rehabilitation for victims of domestic minor sex trafficking or, as it is also known, commercial sexual exploitation of children.    http://gracehaven.me/

Watch Jennifer’s story.   Jennifer’s journey into the darkness of human trafficking started, like many of the women she worked alongside on the streets of downtown Columbus, with a chaotic and abusive childhood, a history of violent and destructive relationships and a downwards spiral into street prostitution and drug addiction. http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2014/nov/16/sp-the-tattooed-trafficking-survivors-reclaiming-their-past

http://www.polarisproject.org/what-we-do/national-human-trafficking-hotline/the-nhtrc/overview

http://www.traffickingresourcecenter.org/

http://www.missingkids.com/home

http://www.centralohiorescueandrestore.org/

Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation hotline 855-224-6446

[photo credit: Anita Patterson Peppers Dreamstime.com  206107.  Article author: Patricia Rodemann]

‘Dare to Inspire’ was the theme for this year’s 31st Intercourt Conference

Ohio’s Inter-court Conference continues to grow.  The conference is most typically attended by juvenile court judges, probation officers, counselors, intake officers, diversion officers, counselors, court administrators, clinicians, magistrates and bailiffs from the majority of Ohio’s counties.  This year, attendees heard the keynote opening presentation, ‘From Desperation to Inspiration’ by Derek Clark, made possible through support of platinum sponsor colleagues at TVN. Pomegranate Health Systems was a silver sponsor/exhibitor at the conference.

Perhaps few saw the presentation coming when Derek began his story.  His mother had only known abuse and that is how he was conceived, product of a violent father who did not want him.  His father tried to cause a spontaneous miscarriage through physical force and beating his mother, actually stomping on her womb while he was just in utero.  His father was imprisoned for a time.  Living in poverty-in a garage for a time, as an infant and toddler, he endured not only child abuse (scalded hands by his mother), but ultimate abandonment, and was eventually turned over to the psychiatric system at age 5. He Dad was later incarcerated as ‘criminally insane’.  Derek said he brought several key points to his seemingly hopeless story:  ‘resilience and redemption’ was key.  There were two messages he made to start the morning, namely, ‘the past has never held him back,’ and ‘make no excuses.’ 

He showed photographs of his psychiatric records and read the descriptive language.  It sounded like he was all but ‘un-adoptable’ and ill-suited to any placement.  As he read the labels, and described his emotional distress, aggression, anxiety, and  behavioral coping mechanisms, he would show photographs of himself, a sweet- looking, blond-haired California kid.  ‘Disable the Label’ became the title of a book. At age six, reports said he had the IQ of a 2 year old and was mentally handicapped.  There were speech and emotional problems.  He then spent 13 years in the foster care system.   One couple made a picture-perfect impression and had a beautiful home in the SF Bay area, good position and stable income, but his abuse continued.  Clark shook his head, ‘You never know what goes on in people’s homes’.   What he endured, ‘followed me for years’, he explained, and that ‘Sometimes our behavior is the only way we can communicate.’   From eight foster home placements he went into shelter care.  At this point the main issue was rage; what to do with the anger.  This resonated with the court crowd.

Clark made the point that if you re-arrange the word ‘listen’, its ‘silent’.  ‘You don’t solve problems without listening first,’ he emphasized.  At the ‘end of the line’, his social worker, a pretty woman with a green sports car, offered a unique pair of foster parents in the San Francisco Bay area, a weekend with the boy. She’d advised him not to mess up and all was going well until the end- when he pitched a fit. The foster dad said, ‘he needs to run- get it out of his system.’  Clark discovered the homestead had gardens, chickens, bunnies and other farm animals and plenty of space to run.  (And one chicken adopted him as it’s pet.)  There were house rules with this family: no video games; TV -1 hour a week; no fast food; no sugar-coated cereal; no soda; and he would have a creative outlet- in this case, music. The clarinet became his best friend- he became a talented musician.  Clark performs internationally today as a singer and songwriter and inspirational speaker on not letting the past limit your life in the present.

He shared how his frugal foster mother of several kids, modified K-Mart sneakers to look more like the far pricier designer brands so he would not be made fun of, by obnoxious and bullying teens.  Clark is still very close to his foster family. A piece of wisdom he interjected, ‘love is thicker than blood. It doesn’t have to be about DNA to be a parent –foster!’ The 16-year old fashioned himself punk-hip; as ‘Diamond D’ and began to vocalize his anger through rap music.  The audience saw his ‘hip’ teen picture with the big hair from ‘back in the day’. One day on the playground where teens gathered to skateboard and rap he was challenged to ‘bring it’ by a black teen ring leader.  That’s where he connected with and discovered his mojo with the rage and gritty life experience spilling out.  As ‘Rappin’ Dad’ one or more of his videos went viral (we posted the link on Facebook) and Clark auditioned recently for America’s Got Talent.  His message is ‘I will never give up.’  Clark has given a TED Talk on ‘The Power of Determination’; appeared on CNN Headline News, The Steve Harvey TV Show, The Ricki Lake Show and has authored six books- all inspirational in nature.  Clark challenged the audience, “We are all born with a bag of concrete and a bucket of water.  Are we  going to build stumbling blocks or stepping stones?”  The audience was on their feet. 

Here are links to Derek Clark’s website, TED Talk, videos/CDs and books:

http://www.iwillnevergiveup.com/

http://www.iwillnevergiveup.com/motivational-speaker-derek-clarks-tedx-talk-power-of-determination/

http://www.iwillnevergiveup.com/shop/

[photo credit: DNf-style/Dreamstime Frank and Danielle Kaumann My Adopted Daughters]

 

Only emotional abuse . . .

“It was only emotional abuse, whatever that is . . . “ said a well-dressed middle aged woman with a smirk. She was gossiping with a friend about a woman they both knew who filed for divorce and child support. They couldn’t have known that the ‘perfect’ couple and their ‘amazing’ children held a secret that would shake their circle of friends to the core, prompting utter disbelief, and then scorn. In a classic pattern, they blamed the victims.

The dad, ‘Blake’, berated and belittled his son and humiliated him at the dinner table, following sporting events, or practice sessions, when his grades came out or when he left his shoes in the family room, or failed to take out the trash. He hounded and shamed his son, (even micro-managed him mowing the lawn), called him names, and bullied him: ‘You Wuss!’ His daughter experienced accusations, shaming and the silent treatment for things she wore, ate, friends she associated with, groups she was interested in, and endured the same treatment in a different way. ‘Just like your mother!’ echoed in her head. Blake’s wife fared far worse from the time he got home until bed time, which made dinners hellish and the kids tense and fearful, ‘Can’t you do anything right? My toast is burnt! You’re pathetic!’ It was the threat with which he controlled them that made the situation volatile, and ‘control’ was a tactic he employed effectively, and ruthlessly. In public, they looked to be the model couple and story-book family, acting their way through church, sports, and community events with plastered-on smiles.

The APA reports, “Children who had been psychologically abused suffered from anxiety, depression, low self-esteem, symptoms of post-traumatic stress and suicidality at the same rate and, in some cases, at a greater rate than children who were physically or sexually abused. Among the three types of abuse, psychological maltreatment was most strongly associated with depression, general anxiety disorder, social anxiety disorder, attachment problems and substance abuse.” [Childhood Psychological Abuse as Harmful as Sexual or Physical Abuse October 8th, 2014. Source: Joseph Spinazzola, PhD, The Trauma Center at Justice Resource Institute]

Author Maria Bogdanos of Psych Central identified five signs of emotional abuse. These include: “1. Humiliation, degradation, discounting, negating, judging, criticizing; 2. Domination, control, and shame; 3. Accusing and blaming, trivial and unreasonable demands or expectations, denies own shortcomings; 4. Emotional distancing and the ‘silent treatment’, isolation, emotional abandonment, or neglect; 5. Codependence and enmeshment.” The APA article cites statistics from the U.S. Children’s Bureau, that ‘nearly 3 million U.S. children experience some form of maltreatment annually’. The focus for many children service agencies is safety, healing, and teaching a new skill set to promote wellness and prevent trauma from occurring in the first place.

‘Out of the Fog’ is a support site for Emotional Abuse victims and links emotional abuse with borderline personality disorder. Their definition of emotional abuse is “Any pattern of behavior directed at one individual by another which promotes in them a destructive sense of Fear, Obligation or Guilt (FOG).” There is a more comprehensive list of the examples of emotional abuse, which the authors describe as, ‘The Bruise that Doesn’t Show’. As the site explains, “Many people who are victims of abuse live in homes or environments where they have become so accustomed to the situation they consider it normal. They do not recognize it even IS abuse sometimes, because there is no physical injury; instead an ongoing emotional barrage takes place which can be just as damaging.”

Psych Central reported on a University of Washington study which found that “Children as young as 15 months are able to detect adult emotions and use the clues to guide their own behavior . . . “ [Toddlers Detect Emotion, Change Behavior Accordingly by Rick Nauert Phd, Psych Central]. From the knowledge that minors are being shaped at each stage of development by those around them- from infancy on, and mirror their behaviors accordingly, it becomes critical to identify and stop emotional abuse. Recognition is the first step in emotionally moving to a new state of mind; realizing that each human being (self included) has value and merit, a lot of good to give going forward, and deserves to receive good in return.

Additional resources/links:
http://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2014/10/psychological-abuse.aspx
http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2013/02/20/signs-of-emotional-abuse/
http://www.outofthefog.net/CommonBehaviors/EmotionalAbuse.html
http://drphil.com/articles/article/19

[photo credit: Dreamstime]

Teen Cyber-life, Risky Business and Parent’s Role

At the Cincinnati Pediatric Mental Health Conference held earlier this month, Stephen J. Smith, Director of Educational Leadership with CBTS [Cincinnati Bell] delivered a workshop on social media and responsible technology. He addressed technology and the family, and the cyber-crime economy. Two of his slides really captured the visual impact of what has happened in a life-time. Using overlapping circles representing mom, dad and child, he showed a photo where the family would gather in the living room to hear radio broadcasts after dinner in the 1940’s. The 2014 circles are almost completely separated, representing mom, dad and child with a plethora of social media options and digital devices surrounding them. They are ‘tuned in and tuned out’- tuned in to the media; tuned out with each other, unlike the shared, and bonding experience of prior decades.

Teens have ‘NO idea of online privacy and there is a pervasive FOMO- fear of missing out. If parents are addicted to technology too, that is not communication. Technology is supposed to help us, but it can hurt our ability to communicate with those we love most in a data driven society,’ he said. As a result of the digital revolution, there are some ‘not so good behaviors’: “49% teens have posted something they regret online; 50% of teens posted their email address online; 30% posted their phone # online; 14% posted their home address; 45% would change their online behavior if they knew their parents were watching, but unfortunately only 15% of parents track their teens using location services on their mobile device” (according to McAfee Blog Central). Smith described how sexting, privacy and bullying are inter-connected and sadly, apps never forget and can go viral- as we’ve seen with the recent Snapchat debacle where illegal photos were retrieved and implicated a predator who cultivated an illicit sexual relationship with a teen.

Smith explored categories of apps- for media, texting, dating, or anonymous hook-ups. After lights are out in many households, “teens send an average of 34 texts a night”- after going to bed in a study by JFK Medical Center in Edison, NJ. Children’s cell phones should be gathered and locked up until morning advocated one psychiatric expert. Smith shared an alarming quote from a predator who said, ‘I could go on it (Kik app) now and probably within 20 minutes have videos, pictures, everything else in between off the app (Hit Me Up) because I know they’re both still active. That’s where all the child porn is coming off of.’ Another app to be concerned about is the hook-up app, ‘Tinder’ . . . where 7 percent of users are between 13 and 17. OkCupid, and YikYak chat are other potentially risky apps, and Ask.fm was implicated in the suicide of a 14 year old girl in 2013 because of social bullying. The teen chat site, ‘Tagged’ was implicated in ‘sextortion’ against teens. Another bullying (stabbing) incident in the media recently, centered around a fictional character ‘Slender Man’, connected with the Creepypasta.com and SoulEater.com web series and You Tube.

JAMA Pediatrics released recent statistics which Smith cited: 28% of teens had sent nude photos; 31% asked for them, and 57% were asked to send them. Among college students 46% sent sext messages with pictures; 64% received. This raises legal questions and implications of being charged with child porn. Many teens unwittingly wind up in a web of illicit activity and the most frightening thing is how vulnerable they are, posting birth date, interests, relationship status, real name- and up to 24% post videos according to a PEW Research report. Gone or deleted is NOT- user data escapes all the time, even from discarded old phones and digital devices supposedly wiped clean.

Another harmful social media trend is sub-tweeting, or making implications about an individual in a new form of cyber-bullying. They don’t have to name you, but you’re identified by a characteristic. Smith urged parents to control the password for downloading apps, monitoring online time, using monitoring tools, and securing your child’s accounts. He cited awiredfamily.org as one source for more information. Hamilton County Prosecutor Jennifer Deering closed the workshop by talking about how Ohio has no cyber-bullying law and no sexting law. The problem of the law is that you have to prove intent to annoy, harass or embarrass and sometimes the minor who posted a video merely thought it was funny. By using examples in the court room, a child is re-victimized. Recently parents were held liable for a fictitious account created by their daughter to bully another teen. See Smithsonian link below. Pomegranate teens are not allowed to bring cell phones to the facility during treatment. (See acute and residential patient handbook-on the website, http://www.pomegranatehealthsystems.com).

What are ‘cognitive distortions’?

These negative statements are examples of cognitive distortions. ‘She never gets it right! What a complete loser! I mean, who could forget all that went into making that decision and then pflooey! It’s like we never went through any of that training and all those discussions. I can’t believe it! What’s wrong with her! Geez! In fact, I think they’re all like that! Bunch of losers! What did you expect?! I betcha he’ll screw it up too. They can’t get anything right! It’s ALL going down the tubes!’ Ever hear people make statements like this? The person making the statements is really overgeneralizing and then, jumping to conclusions about the person in the beginning and at the end of the statement. You can expand (magnify) upon the statement- and turn it into a catastrophe (it’s all going down the tubes). You can see how this might cause a problem in cyber-bullying. ‘She’s a complete disaster.’

Other examples of cognitive distortion include personalizing. ‘It was all my fault the computer went down’; ‘I was late getting here; that’s why my team lost the match’. (My fault) There are several related distortions such as believing one is the victim of fate or assuming responsibility for the happiness or unhappiness of people in our lives. ‘Are you upset because of something I said?” A teen might blame a sibling for feeling bad, ‘Joey made me miss that basket! He makes me feel like a loser!’ (Blame game!) The realization is that we’re the ones in control of our emotions and reactions to outer situations. Your feelings are not Joey’s fault.

Related to this is when we expect a child or partner to change with enough coaxing to fit our agenda. A teen girl in a first relationship might think, “if I love him enough he’ll dress up/stop drinking/get a job/quit being abusive/pay more attention to me”. The unrealistic expectation that we are responsible to change someone else’s behavior can trip a person up all the time. This is called ‘Fallacy of Change’. Life isn’t fair, but applying a hoop or yardstick to one’s own life can set a person up for a feeling of failure. ‘Barbara was born on the right side of the tracks with a silver spoon in her mouth. Gee, it must be nice to always win.’ (Implying that you weren’t born on the right side of the tracks, and can’t win, or aren’t a ‘winner’ or even, ever win.)

Another distortion is the classic ‘should’ or ‘shoulda/coulda/woulda’ that many people beat themselves up over. ‘I should say no to that piece of cake. I must not have any willpower.’ These go alongside ‘ought to’ and ‘must’ as emotional guilt triggers which fuel frustration and disappointment. You should have gone to the gym instead of going to Olive Garden for that pig out! The recipient might experience resentment, defensiveness, or anger. Granted, we all do it! However, you might take this further. A teen with an eating disorder might be feeling fat and ugly looking through a magazine; therefore it must be true (even though they’re a normal size). This is called ‘emotional reasoning’. Labeling or mislabeling often causes a lot of pain for teens who are bullied: ‘ugly’, ‘stupid’, ‘fat’, ‘slut’- are not very nice labels whether said by ‘mean girls’ or immature boys. An example of internalizing this might be when an adolescent gets a poor mark on a math test and assumes he is a ‘dummy’; incapable of doing well in the subject- ever.

The adolescent’s dad might also employ cognitive distortions by always having to be right, to have the last word, regardless of anyone else’s feelings. ‘Some day, you’ll appreciate me!’ he might bellow. In cognitive behavioral theory, therapists work on identifying the distortions and helping a teen to correct them. “Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is a form of treatment that focuses on examining the relationships between thoughts, feelings and behaviors. By exploring patterns of thinking that lead to self-destructive actions and the beliefs that direct these thoughts, people with mental illness can modify their patterns of thinking to improve coping. CBT is a type of psychotherapy that is different from traditional psycho-dynamic psychotherapy in that the therapist and the patient will actively work together to help the patient recover from their mental illness,” according to the NAMI website. You can download fact sheets and access further information here.:
http://www.nami.org/Content/NavigationMenu/Inform_Yourself/About_Mental_Illness/About_Treatments_and_Supports/Cognitive_Behavioral_Therapy1.htm

Cognitive behavioral therapy helps a teen to recognize thought patterns that might contribute to problems and how changing and managing these thoughts can help him/her to feel and act differently. CBT connects the dots between thoughts- feelings-beliefs-behavior. It’s not just ‘talk therapy’ but includes education, redirection, and is goal-oriented with long-term results. It is participative and time-limited with specific outcomes and homework. There are several types of therapies. In a residential treatment context, CBT-informed therapy is effective alongside a structured schedule, individual and group counseling as well as the medical/psychiatric care provided.

Read more at:

http://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/cognitive-behavioral-therapy/basics/definition/prc-20013594
http://www.academyofct.org/
http://www.academyofct.org/faq/

Home

http://psychcentral.com/lib2009/15-common-cognitive-distortions/