The adolescent years are challenging even in relatively problem-free famiies. All bets are off, and what had been true for ten or eleven years is suddenly not true. The well-behaved child now questions every directive, forgets chores, and loses homework. The good-natured, sweet girl now tortures her younger sister and screams at the adult members of the family.
What happened?
Developmental Tasks
It is easy to forget that the basic aim of raising children is to nurture them into independence, so that they will become self-supporting, independent adults. This is the goal of being a mother or father, to work oneself out of a job. Everyone in the family has ambivalence about this.
Other conditions that may arise include bedwetting, stress from family divorce or serious illness, extreme shyness, repetitive behaviors, nightmares,
and fear of medical procedures.
How Can CBT Help?
Anxiety: When a child or adolescent shows signs of being so fearful that life functioning is interrupted, the lamily may turn to CBI and a therapist who can guide the way. Individual therapy for the child or the parents, along with group therapy, offers hope and support for changing worrisome patterns. Children who suffer PTSD from a trauma such as a shooting, accident, or sudden death of a close family member can be helped by CBT techniques that assist them in recognizing flashbacks and learning what is the past, the present, and the future.
Workbook Publishing offers games and books for children in therapy such as The Coping Cat and Camp Cope a Lot. The techniques used will be similar for adults-catching the negative thought or belief and changing it to something positive. The child or teenager is taught to recognize the physical symptoms and make breathing and behavioral changes to arrest the disruptive emotions.
Depression: Depressed children may lose interest in their normal pleasurable activities, shifting passively to sleep or watching TV. Depressed youth become withdrawn and may talk more than usual about death. Both individual and group therapy has been helpful in these situations, as CBT teaches the child which thoughts lead to negative, sad emotions. Children and youths that are in group and individual therapy are taught to choose a different thought. The therapist and others in the group provide support and encouragement. Sometimes parents are included in the group.
Inattention and Hyperactivity: Impulsivity, inattention, and hyperactivity cause problems in school and social relationships. One expects a very young child to shift from focus to focus, but when this immature behavior is prolonged, relationships become strained. CBT offers group and individual help for parents, teaching them attitudes and behaviors that serve to shape the child’s environment in a positive direction. Training is also available for teachers who need classroom management skills in order to cope with ADHD children. Both parents and teachers learn such techniques as lowering the pitch of speaking, touching the child to get his attention, and diverting his attention to something positive when the child is frustrated.
Disruptive, Defiant Behaviors: Stealing, lying, hitting, and otherwise acting out can disrupt a child’s or adolescent’s social standing and the usual communication processes. She is soon labeled as “the bad child,” making it difficult to progress developmentally. CBT teaches anger management and the components of Rational Emotive Therapy, so the child is able to trace the difficulty from its origins to the natural, unwanted consequence. New thoughts and behaviors are taught in individual or group sessions, sometimes including the parents, so that she can give up her unhelpful ways of coping and unpleasant acting out. In extreme situations, foster care may be advised to give everyone a breather.
Substance Abuse: Although it does happen that a young child becomes addicted, perhaps from finishing off beer bottles and wine glasses at family parties, this is unusual. Group and family therapies are a possible context for learning CBT ways of coping during adolescence. Some therapies teach parents short-term methods of intervening with a substance-dependent adoles-cent. Twelve-step programs are available for families who struggle with an addicted child. Al-Anon is widely available nationally, internationally, and through telephone conference call meetings. Family therapy and individual therapy are helpful in these cases, as gent erally everyone in the family dynamic is affected by the stresses of a child behaving in a life-threatening manner. All the members learn to identify the underlying issues-control, feeling unloved, and needing attention. CBT helps adolescents learn realistic body images.
Severe Mood Swings and Rage: Adolescents suffering from bipolar disorder with the disruptive symptoms of extreme moodiness and raging outbursts can find help with CBT techniques. Family therapy and individual therapy teach everyone concerned how to manage their irrational thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. A specific type of CBT called Dialectical Therapy has been found to be useful in alleviating bipolar symptoms in teenagers.
Originally developed for mood control in bipolar patients, this approach combines acknowledging the emotions that arise with an anticipated behavior change, and clear-headed understanding about the rationality of the situation. Is it truly dangerous or does it merely seem dangerous?
Sometimes the entire family needs education about what is unrealistic and what is realistic when dealing with a bipolar child or adolescent The originators of Dialectical Therapy found that patients often needed unconditional support for a time before learning to trust the process of learning new behaviors.
Working with Negative Core Beliefs
As distressing as they might be, especially upon the initial discovery, your core negative beliefs can become your friends. Those sentences, if you can bear to write them down, are a gold mine of information about what you can decide to change. They are the radar and sonar that have guided your existence, even if in a not so wonderful way.
Core beliefs can be elusive and sneaky, as they are so deeply entrenched in your personality and daily life. Ways to discover core beliefs are to have a relationship with someone who has a quite different background, to live in another culture for an extended period of time, or to undergo extensive therapeutic work of some kind. Another avenue of discovery is to try something drastically different and see how uncomfortable you become. If you feel discomfort, i’s because the new way is dissonant with your old beliefs.
Examples of Negative Core Beliefs
Some of your negative core beliefs might be similar to the following sen-tences. As you are your own individual, yours might have a slightly different twist. Feel free to rewrite them to match your own background and belief system.
- I am unlovable.
- I am worthless
- I am defined by my achievements.
- have to do what my parents and significant others want me to do.
- It is dangerous to bring too much attention to myself.
- IfI can find the right mate, I’ll be happy forever.
- My spouse is supposed to read my mind and satisfy my every need.
- Life should be smooth and problem-free.
- Making others angry is dangerous for me.
- Others’ needs and wants always come first.
- Doing for others keeps me safe.
- I’m not supposed to have needs and wants of my own.
Upon reading this list, you may feel discouraged at the depth of negativity expressed by these statements, and to find to your dismay that you hold your some of those beliefs to be true about yourself. They are deep. This is why they are called core beliefs.
What to Do with Them?
A novel way to reframe deeply held beliefs is to take the time to speak to oneself as if patiently speaking to a child. The exact words will vary according to one’s background and particular vulnerabilities. You may fashion some affirmations for yourself that are something like this:
“You’re important. Let’s take the time to think about this together.”
“‘m so happy to spend time with you today! What shall we do together?”
“Your needs are very important to me. It’s safe to tell me what you want and need.”
“We seem to be having a hard time today. What do you want to tell me?”
“The world is a safe place, and you have an essential part in it.”
Incorporating behavioral challenges along with your affirmation work provides a double-barreled approach to positive change. If you are afraid of elevators, ride an elevator only one floor up, adding another floor each day. If you are afraid of a particular animal, seek out proximity to that animal at a pet shop or zoo. You may want to start with pictures and then progress to being near the animal with protective glass shielding you.
It is interesting to experiment with the voice of affirmations. Some people crave the affirmative directive, as if it is coming from the other person.
Those “you” statements have the feeling of giving permission to think and feel in a new way. Others like to put the affirmation in the first person. The strong “I” statement gives the person a sense of centeredness and control.
Another interesting way to work with your affirmations is to state them in the third person, as if someone else were talking about you in the new positive way. For example, “(your name)_ is important, deserving of time and consideration.”
Turning Negativity Into Creativity
Your human mind is quite creative if you allow it to be so, and you can be wild and free with your affirmations. Such freedom does wonders to coun teract a lifetime of constriction and trying to do everything in the “correct” way, but never feeling very satisfied.
The Wilder the Better!
Let your mind create some expansive and free affirmations to loosen up your previous mindset. Some new ideas could be something like this:
- All of life is my sky.
- I bound from experience to experience as freely as a lively squirrel.
- Today I soar like an eagle.
- All previous restrictions fall away, and I rise like a phoenix.
- All restricting beliefs, both conscious and subconscious, fall away right now.
- The world is my friendly, welcoming playground, and God wants me to have fun.
- The lavish abundance of life washes over me today and every day.
Sometimes you can think of ways to creatively combine cognitive and behavioral efforts. For example, if you are afraid of public speaking or teaching an adult class, craft your affirmation to say something like, “My students are eager to learn from me, and I’m eager to help them.” Then actually go to the room where you will speak, stand at the podium, create the posture of a confident speaker, and envision the chairs filled with attentive listeners.
Make Your Therapy Portable
Your life is busy and fast-paced, so it can be useful to work your affirmations into multiple parts of your day. Could you send yourself an uplifting voice mail or text during the day? Write some helpful affirmations on business-sized cards that are easy to carry in your wallet or stash in your desk drawer at work? Perhaps you may want to place one in the visor of your car. Some forward-thinking people share their affirmations with others on Facebook, a good way to form a positive, supportive community.
It is always interesting to browse in a metaphysical gift and bookstore to see what is offered. Several companies, including Hay House, manufac ture affirmation cards on various aspects of life-health, relationships, pros-perity, success, and peace of mind. Often these cards incorporate beautiful, uplifting artwork to add to the power of the affirmative words.
The Power of the Subconscious
The subconscious mind is the mind that drives your thinking, emotions, and behavior without you even knowing it. As you can imagine from the prefix sub, it is under your conscious mind-deeper, hidden, and usually out of your range of awareness. The subconscious mind is not rational. It is more like a computer or a trusty workhorse that carries out what you direct it to do, without question or examination.
The Usefulness of the Subconscious
In many ways the subconscious mind gets bad press because it is hid-den. But in many ways, it is very useful and necessary. You would become exhausted if you had to make every small decision in your day completely from scratch. Your subconscious mind helps you remember how to tie your shoes, button your clothing, take care of your bodily functions, drive a car, count money, remember the vocabulary and grammar of your native lan-guage, and take care of so many other automatic actions of a typical day. It actually frees you to handle larger issues and greater challenges.
Changing Subconscious Mind Directives
You discover the true power of your life when you attempt to change some outdated directives stored in your subconscious mind. Try to remember that this part of the mental function is reflexive. It is not analytical, cre-ative, or spontaneous. It will never come up with a new behavior, emotion, or thought that is beneficial to you. This fine-tuning of your life has to come from your left-brain cognitive powers. You decide that an old belief or motivation is no longer appropriate and go about changing it with relentless affirmations.
Garbage In, Garbage Out
During the earlier days of the computer industry, there arose the play. ful statement “Garbage in, garbage out.” This little motto was to caution computer users that the computers were not actually intelligent in a human sense, although they were quick and efficient in following the instructions directives. This can be horrifying once you discover that so many of the dire in ves This a be harme may tre ubc discious hind caries out your directives are terribly limiting and negative. This sobering knowledge will help you develop a garbage pickup routine.
Keep reminding yourself that you are in charge of what is in your subconscious mind. As you discover negative beliefs, get busy replacing them.
No one will do this work for you, although you may discover interested companions who can help and support you during the process. Ultimately it is up to you. It is a lot of responsibility, but who better than you to create the life that you envision?
Engage the Hero or Heroine Within!
If you like stories and mythology, you may want to tap into those cultural figures that give you spirit and energy to do the nearly impossible. Your favorite figure could be the little red-haired Meriden in the movie Brave, Spiderman, Zorro, Sacagawea, or whoever provides a role model you can believe in. If you loved stories as a child, you might want to revisit some of those tales, as the emotional connection will be stronger than stories of adulthood. Find some figures that make you feel like you can soar with power and energy. Play with children’s action figures. Take another look at comic books you enjoyed during your teen years. Perhaps Wonder Woman can inspire you again.
Crafting Useful Affirmations
In her marvelous bestselling book, You Can Heal Your Life, metaphysical• writer Louise Hay divides the various aspects of life into five basic groups-relationships, work, succes, prosperity, and the body, with dozens of beauti-in those areas.
fully written examples of affirmations to support the reader in improvement Relationships
It never works to adopt someone else’s affirmations, as that person’s life is different from your own. Affirmations that you write for yourself will have that laser-perfect point of accuracy. However, reading some general affirmations crafted by others can give you ideas to hone your own. Some of Hay’s affirmations for relationships are similar to the following:
- I live in peaceful harmony with everyone I know.
- My love flows out of me and then returns multiplied many times over.
- All who enter my home feel my love.
- I only attract loving and generous people into my life.
- The Universe takes care of me in a loving way.
You may want to think about forgiveness in your relationships, creating affirmations to free yourself from long-standing resentment and bitterness toward various people, institutions, and situations in your life that have not treated you well. It’s time to be free of those old emotional prisons. You may also want to think about your relationship with yourself, creating some affirmations voicing radical self-acceptance. We live in such a high frequency, ramped up, technological age that the sweet grace of self-love can get completely lost. Make some simple statements that say how much you appreciate yourself, even with mistakes and flaws. Maybe some of the flow of forgiveness can go toward yourself, creating a spiritual wash that cleans out all your mistakes and failures. It’s time for a positive relationship with yourself as well as with others.
Self-support with employment takes up many hours of the day for the average person, and if the boss is unfair, coworkers often gossip, and your field of specialty is impacted by a recessionary economy, you may wonder how you can even begin to turn things around with affirmations. You can.
Think about some of Louise Hay’s statements concerning work, and see if you might tweak them to fit in your own life open to work that uses all my gifts, talents, and capabilities.
Leave a Reply