Reducing negative emotions amongst adolescents: the role of dialectical behaviour therapy (DBT)

Pages: 1794-1798
Taruna and Sandeep Singh (Department of Applied Psychology, Guru Jambheshwar University of Science & Technology, Hisar, Haryana)

Negative emotions are primarily the most common reasons when adolescents seek psychological and pysychiatric assistance and treatment. Amongst the adolescents, it is common to experience the negative emotions of depression, hopelessness, guilt, shame and humiliation. Notably, the negative emotions of depression and hopelessness are the major and most commonly found negative emotions among the adolescent age group. Various therapeutic intervention programmes are available and applied to manage the depression amongst the adolescents. DBT is a comprehensive and extended form of cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT) for complex, difficult-to-treat mental disorders (Linehan, 1993a, 1993b). DBT and its adapted and extended forms have evolved into treatment for various psychiatric disorders such as, substance dependence with borderline personality disorder( Linehan, Schmidt, Dimeff, Craft, Kanter, & Comtois, 1999), binge eating(Telch et al,in press), depressed suicidal adolescents( Rathus & Miller,2000), depressed elderly( Lynch,2000) and to variety of inpatients and outpatient psychiatric clinical settings. The primary objective of the present research study was to observe the effect of adapted form of dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) for the management of negative emotion of depression and hopelessness amongst adolescents. In the present study authors kept 20 participants on therapeutic intervention for the period of one year. The participants recorded to have high levels of depression on the measure of Beck Depression Inventory- II (BDI-II) and high levels of hopelessness on the measure of Beck Hopelessness Scale (BHS). Participants were trained exclusively on the skills training modules of DBT in individual as well as group settings and their post intervention assessment of depression and hopelessness levels were recorded with the respective tools after every four months ( baseline, four, eight and twelve months) respectively. Descriptive statistical analysis (mean and standard deviation) and paired t-test was used to test the significance of mean. The results obtained from the present study recorded the significant decrease in the mean depression and hopelessness scores from baseline to twelve months (end of therapeutic intervention). The results obtained from the present study revealed that DBT has a significant role in managing the negative emotions of depression and hopelessness amongst adolescent. It primarily improves the basic interpersonal skills of an individual and teaches to regulate and express the emotionality mindfully.

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Pages: 1794-1798
Taruna and Sandeep Singh (Department of Applied Psychology, Guru Jambheshwar University of Science & Technology, Hisar, Haryana)