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At BryLin, we recognize the challenges children and adolescents with mental health conditions face every day. Our Outpatient Mental Health Care Program for Children and Adolescents is focused on helping young people and their families cope with mental illness. BryLin is now using Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), an evidence-based form of cognitive behavioral therapy, for teenagers who experience significant trouble managing their thoughts, behaviors, and emotions.

BryLin’s DBT Therapy for Children (DBT-C) Program uses an evidence-based approach to help adolescents who struggle with identifying and managing their emotions, have trouble with relationships, and exhibit unhealthy behaviors. DBT-C uses multiple modes of treatment including individual therapy, group counseling, skills training, working directly with parents, and coaching by phone to help children and their families.

Adolescents who benefit from DBT-C are often described by family members as:

Thinking about things in the extreme — Believing everything is great or everything is horrible or having inflexible thinking. Trouble with anxiety, persistent worry, having an inability to acknowledge their true emotions, and “masking” how they feel to those around them.
Behaving in extremes — Hurting themselves or others, breaking objects, or possessions, and making decisions quickly and without thinking through the consequences. This can also manifest in other ways such as no longer completing school assignments, running away, or lying to caregivers. There may also be substance use involved to help cope with their feelings.
Feeling in extremes — Being highly sensitive to their own feelings and the feelings of others, beating themselves up over things that seem small, feeling their emotions more strongly than their siblings or friends, and having trouble moving on from negative feelings. At times this can go the other direction with feeling detached or numb with a difficulty relating to others causing isolation or depression.

DBT-C is an empirically supported adaptation of DBT but for children and adolescents. Our program at BryLin’s Outpatient Mental Health Clinic is currently focused on the 13-17 age group, though we will look to expand the age range in the future.

This is a comprehensive DBT program that has been modified to fit the needs of children in this age range and involves significant parental involvement and a commitment to the full program:

approximately 2-3 weeks for assessment/evaluation prior to the start of the program
then 10 weeks of group
individual sessions weekly
phone check-ins when appropriate

Adolescents can remain in services after completion of the program for further mental health support and counseling with their primary therapist.

DBT-C begins with a full assessment of needs for each family to determine which areas are of the highest concern and to ensure appropriateness of placement into the program. This program offers a thorough parent-training component that occurs throughout the program to help support each adolescent in their treatment, and maintains a focus on building, practicing, and reinforcing new coping skills to achieve emotional and behavioral regulation.

There are groups once per week (currently offered virtually via webcam), and parents attend approximately half of the groups with their child to help facilitate lasting change in the family unit. Adolescents also are seen weekly by their primary counselor for individual counseling and skill follow-up, during which parents/caregivers will join sessions as necessary. Families receive individualized attention as they work together to improve upon and practice their skills together with the support of an experienced clinician.

BryLin’s Outpatient Child & Adolescent Mental Health Program is an OMH Certified Mental Health Clinic that offers individual, group, and family counseling for children ages 5-17 that may be having difficulty with feelings of depression, anxiety, behavioral problems, or a wide variety of other mental health concerns. Parents play a strong role in therapy for best treatment outcomes.

For more information on DBT-C or any other aspect of outpatient mental health counseling, please contact the BryLin Outpatient Mental Health Clinic at (716) 632-5450. More information can also be obtained at www.brylin.com.

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