Human emotions are wild and crazy things.
And they have a way of getting out of control.
One day, everything’s normal and you’re completely fine.
Then, the next day, something happens that seems to make the whole world go dark.
Or maybe you’ve been struggling with intense negative emotions for a large part of your life already, and you just feel worn down.
Whatever the case, it’s not only happening to you, and a lot of other people can relate.
And just like many of those other people, therapy for emotional regulation might be something you want to consider exploring.
There are many valid options available to you out there, but we’ll give you a brief introduction to a few of them here.
1. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) First on our list is an obvious specialty of ours.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is a tried-and-true method of therapy designed to challenge and deprogram negative thought patterns.
In simple terms, one of the primary aims is to locate and identify the point at which your thoughts go from being reasonable and positive to being unrealistically negative .
What do we mean by that?
Well, …
For Example Let’s say you lose your keys and think to yourself, “That’s an annoying thing that happened.”
In that scenario, you’re just having a standard reaction to an experience.
Annoying things happen sometimes, and they annoy us.
That’s completely normal, and there is nothing weird or unhealthy about it.
However, imagine that you react by instead thinking to yourself something like, “I always because I’m such an idiot, and that’s why I didn’t get into that school/job I wanted!”
Now that would be unfair and unreasonable thinking.
Even the most intelligent and industrious people in the world surely lose track of their keys from time to time.
So, you’re definitely being way too hard on yourself by thinking stuff like that.
If anyone else said or thought those same things about you, you’d probably feel like they’re being a totally unreasonable jerk who is judging you by an unrealistic standard.
And you’d be correct to feel that way.
So, don’t be that way to yourself.
Life is hard, you’re a human being, and you’re doing your best.
Give yourself a break. 🙂
Tried and True Cognitive Behavioral Therapy has been around for a long time, and in the fast-moving field of mental healthcare, that says a lot.
That longevity and widespread use are already sufficient reasons to make it the first method you try.
With any luck, it may also be the last form of therapy for emotional regulation you’ll need.
Don’t worry if it isn’t, though.
Many people have multiple complex issues that require separate, tailored therapeutic approaches.
And that brings us to…
2. Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) This method was developed specifically to deal with difficulties in regulating emotions .
We know we put CBT at the top of this list, but that’s mainly because it is a generalized approach that helps patients understand and get to the roots of many of their issues.
However, DBT is frequently a terrific next step in therapy for emotional regulation.
Where CBT focuses primarily on thoughts, Dialectical Behavior Therapy focuses on behaviors and habits, and that’s what makes them go so well together.
Once you’ve come to understand a bit more about your thought patterns, the changes you need to make to your actual behaviors and ingrained habits start to make a lot more sense.
And make no mistake, if you’re in a therapist’s office, it’s a near 100% certainty that your automatic thoughts are not the only things that are out of order.
Your habits are also undoubtedly out of whack, and you probably haven’t even noticed the full extent of it yet.
And if your daily habits and behaviors are dysfunctional, then much of your life is dysfunctional because most of our lives are mainly lived on autopilot.
Yep, for most of the time, we’re just coasting on our ingrained habit patterns to get us through each day (and night) without consciously noticing or thinking about them.
That’s what DBT can help you with .
3. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) Now we’re going to throw a little bit of a curveball at you.
Don’t be scared; it’s still just another form of therapy for emotional regulation, and it’s meant to help you feel better and improve your quality of life.
Doesn’t that sound nice?
The rub with Acceptance and Commitment Therapy is that it focuses on addressing the difficult emotional experiences you have and, instead of running from them, accepting them as part of your life.
That sounds simple on the surface, but as you might guess by the fact that there is a whole branch of therapy based on it, things get a lot deeper than that .
An easy way to conceptualize it is to see it as a way to allow yourself to simply be with your feelings and process them, rather than fleeing, fighting, or hating them.
Particularly if you’re burnt out, exhausted, and feel like you’ve been fighting a losing battle for a long time, this may well be something you can benefit from.
There Is Help Regardless of which method you choose to start with or which one you ultimately find best handles your specific cluster of concerns, know that you’ve got support.
There are qualified and caring therapists all over the country who chose this profession because they want to make a positive difference in someone’s life.
And most of them have been specifically trained in at least one or two of the methods of therapy for emotional regulation that we’ve mentioned here.
So, don’t be afraid to ask and, in fact, ask your therapist as many questions as you can think of.
Therapy works so much better if you’re an enthusiastic participant.
Whatever helps you also helps them help you .
