Lakeland Behavioral Health System provides focused, gender-specific care to ensure that adolescent boys ages 14 to 17 who have been struggling with mental health disorders receive the guidance and support that they need to achieve long-term recovery.
The Benefits of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
Cognitive behavioral therapy, or CBT, can be an extremely effective type of therapy for adolescent boys. CBT is designed to help participants make tangible changes in how they think or act in order to achieve specific objectives.
The “cognitive” part of CBT focuses on how negative thoughts can undermine a person’s ability to experience success, while the “behavioral” component addresses the self-defeating actions that may result from unproductive thought processes.
During CBT sessions with an experienced professional, your son will learn how to replace negative thought and behavior patterns with healthier and more productive ways of thinking and acting. As your son progresses through CBT sessions, he will gain a better understanding of the connection between his thoughts and his actions, and he will learn to take positive control over his behaviors.
Promoting Positive & Appropriate Behavior
CBT is just one part of a comprehensive effort at Lakeland Behavioral Health System to help adolescent boys develop a more positive outlook on life and engage in healthier and more productive behaviors.
Our treatment professionals understand that inappropriate and otherwise unacceptable behaviors can be symptomatic of a variety of concerns, including poor self-esteem, insufficient coping skills, unresolved trauma, and various mental health disorders. In order to elicit positive lasting changes in behavior, these contributing factors must be addressed in a healthy manner.
Thus, we work closely with all boys in our inpatient program to identify and effectively resolve the underlying issues that lead to the problematic behaviors.
The intensive comprehensive nature of treatment in our inpatient program ensures that your son will have the guidance and support that he needs to take ownership over his actions and engage with the world in a healthier and more satisfying manner.
Intensive Therapies & Evaluations
Our inpatient program for adolescent boys is a short-term experience that is designed to promote long-term healing. With a typical length of stay of 17 days, this program is designed to help your son achieve stabilization and begin to make the changes that will promote continued success.
An essential component of this effort is our ability to provide intensive comprehensive services that are focused on your son’s unique needs and specific goals.
When your son first enters treatment at Lakeland Behavioral Health System, he will complete a thorough assessment process to ensure that we have identified all of the factors that have been preventing him from achieving to his greatest potential. That assessment, and the continual re-evaluations that will occur throughout his time in our care, will inform the development of his personalized treatment plan.
Depending upon the results of that initial assessment, your son’s progress in our inpatient program, and our ongoing communication with you, his personalized plan may include a variety of intensive services, including medication management as well as individual, group, family, and experiential therapy.
Group Therapy Topics
Group therapy is an integral part of inpatient programming for adolescent boys at Lakeland Behavioral Health System. Under the guidance of experienced professionals, groups will provide your son with the opportunity to learn more about the challenges he is facing, share his insights, benefit from the experiences of others, and practice healthy interpersonal relationship and communication skills.
Depending upon your son’s personalized treatment plan, he may participate in groups such as the following:
Anger management: This group will help your son identify sources of anger and understand how these sources trigger unhealthy decisions and actions. He will also learn more effective coping strategies that will empower him to control his emotions and engage in healthier behaviors in response to potential triggers.
Self-image/social skills: In this group, you son will develop a more positive view of himself and gain greater insights into his emotional and behavioral challenges. This group is designed to boost your son’s self-esteem by focusing on his innate strengths and decreasing his reliance on peer validation. A secondary benefit of this group is that it will lower his risks of anger outbursts, aggression, family conflict, and self-harming behaviors/suicidal ideations.
Coping skills: This group is designed to help adolescent boys respond to stresses, pressures, and other triggers in a healthier and more productive manner. Your son and other group participants will learn to identify triggers, develop strategies for avoiding and/or addressing conflict, and otherwise managing their thoughts, emotions, and behaviors.
To learn more about group therapy topics or any other aspects of inpatient programming for adolescent boys at Lakeland Behavioral Health System, please feel free to contact us at your convenience. We look forward to answering all of your questions and helping you decide if our program is the perfect place for your son.
