Adolescence can be a difficult time for teens marked by rapid changes and intense emotions. At Sunrise Residential Treatment Center we use the ABC please skill to help give teens the tools they need to overcome conditions like anxiety, depression, and Bipolar Disorder. Here’s what you need to know how the ABC please skills used in Dialectical Behavior Therapy can help provide practical tools for teens to manage their emotions effectively and enhance their overall well-being.
Key DBT Skill ABC Please Highlights
- ABC PLEASE stands for Accumulate Positive Experiences, Build Mastery, Cope Ahead, Physical Illness, Balanced Eating, Avoid Mood-Altering Substances, Balanced Sleep, and Exercise.
- ABC Please skills can help teens regulate their emotions effectively and foster resilience in the face of challenges.
- Incorporating the DBT ABC PLEASE skills into adolescents’ daily routines can significantly impact their emotional regulation and well-being.
- Sunrise Residential Treatment Center helps teen male, female, and LGBTQ+ youths overcome difficult mental health conditions through healing residential treatment.
What is the DBT Skill ABC Please?
The DBT skill ABC Please is a tool used in Dialectical Behavior Therapy that can help teens and adolescents cope with and manage intense emotions.
The DBT skill called ABC PLEASE can you increase emotional resilience and decrease vulnerability to future unpleasant emotions. By accumulating positive experiences, both short-term and long-term, building your skills and talents, and thinking ahead about how to cope, you’ll be more likely to bounce back quickly from a negative experience. PLEASE skills offer guidelines for staying in good physical health to help you bounce back from unpleasant emotions.
When you master the ABC skills, you’ll know the importance of positive experiences, be ready to increase your hobbies and talents, and understand how to prepare for difficult experiences beforehand.
We usually consider life to be going well when we have more positive experiences than negative experiences. Like a bank account, we need to put in more than we take out to be stable. When we have a high amount of positive experiences and then have a setback, we’re more likely to bounce back quickly. (Think: a $10 withdrawal out of an account with $1000.) Yet, when you have a setback after a week of layoffs, bad grades, and relationship woes, any small issue could feel catastrophic. (Think: a $10 withdrawal out of an account with $13.)
At Sunrise, we help teens at our residential treatment center (RTC) accumulate these experiences by exposing them to a variety of activities. These include camping, rock climbing, rappelling, and activities in the nearby city to build positive emotions into their lives regularly. This improves the likelihood that our students will experience more positive emotions. When a student goes through a time of sadness, anxiety, or other unwanted emotions, they have many positive memories to look back on. These memories remind them that life can be joyous and help them move forward.
ACCUMULATING SHORT-TERM POSITIVE EXPERIENCES
To have an effective bank account of positive experiences, you need to participate in both short-term and long-term experiences.
A short-term positive experience is any activity you enjoy and can do regularly. These are simple activities such as calling a friend, spending time in the garden, or playing a game with your family. Most of us do these things occasionally, but their effects wear off quickly. Doing them more frequently—at least one thing daily—builds our resilience against negative emotions and promotes feelings of happiness and contentment.
Be mindful of positive experiences
Have you ever been physically present for an event, but emotionally missed it because your mind was elsewhere? In order to truly enjoy an experience, you must be mindful of it, including any physical discomfort you may be feeling. If you notice your attention starting to wander, or other thoughts begin creeping in, gently redirect your attention back to the activity at hand. In time, focusing on your enjoyable activity will become a habit.
Positive Experiences List
Including a variety of positive experiences in your life ensures that they’ll stick. Here are some suggestions for activities, whether or not you have the energy to spare.
HIGH-ENERGY
- Go for a run
- Work outside
- Clean the house
- Go for a walk
- Start a home-improvement project
- Play with a pet
- Go for a scenic drive
- Play an educational game
- Spend time with children
- Explore a new part of the city
- Visit your favorite store
LOW-ENERGY
- Write a letter to a friend
- Do a craft
- Watch a favorite show or movie
- Journal
- Call/text a friend
- Look through photos
- Plan holiday gifts
- Plan the week’s meals
- Write a story
- Read a book
- Download a new app
Sharing pleasant activities with your teen
Accumulating positive experiences is better when shared with someone else. Intentionally create positive experiences with your teen to help build a stronger relationship, especially if your relationship has been reduced to discipline and arguments. Here’s a list of things to do with your teen:
- Clothes shopping
- Begin a craft
- Window shopping
- Go for a drive
- Go out to lunch
- Bake cookies
- See a movie
- Take photos
- Take a walk
- Get facials
ACCUMULATING LONG-TERM POSITIVE EXPERIENCES
Long-term positive experiences are meaningful and lasting. These are the experiences—or the steps we take toward the experiences—that help us build a meaningful life. Long-term experiences could include graduating from high school, attending college, traveling, a dream job, or having a healthy family. The long-term positive experiences that will be most important to you depends on what you value in life.
“Long-term positive experiences are meaningful and lasting.”
Values and Priorities
If you’re struggling to identify long-term goals that will bring you happiness, consider creating a list of your top values. A clear understanding of what you value in life can help you know what actions to take to honor those values. Be sure to prioritize your life around the things you value.
Taking Small Steps
Small steps toward big things can make a meaningful difference in our lives. Identify a goal and break it into feasible steps. If your goal is to get into a good college, your first step might be studying for your upcoming Spanish test. These smaller tasks not only make the big goal seem more manageable, they are also daily reminders of what you’re working toward.
Pay Attention to Relationships
Having plenty of healthy relationships is a key factor in our long-term happiness. Be sure to nurture your current relationships and look for opportunities to build new relationships.
Avoid Avoiding, Avoid Giving Up
When our stressors have piled up, we are more vulnerable to unwanted emotions. Prevent additional stress by tackling issues head-on instead of ignoring or procrastinating them.
Accumulating positive experiences is better when shared with someone else. Intentionally create positive experiences with your teen to help build a more positive relationship, especially if your relationship has been reduced to discipline and arguments. Here’s a list of things to do with your teen:
B-BUILD MASTERY
Building mastery means learning and becoming proficient in new skills (and not just DBT skills). It encourages you to engage in hobbies and talents that you love to do. When you have a repertoire of activities that you enjoy and excel in, it builds your self-confidence and ensures that you feel capable and talented on a regular basis. You also have something to fall back on in times of boredom, anxiety, or depression. Though you may not want to in the moment, engaging in one of these activities can alleviate or eradicate unwanted emotions, providing a sense of accomplishment.
Building mastery also means that you’re not planning for failure. Instead, you assume that you’ll be successful in each situation you’re placed in. As you gain more experience being successful in various situations, you’ll feel more confident in your ability to overcome unwanted emotions.
“When you have a repertoire of activities that you enjoy and excel in, it builds your self-confidence and ensures that you feel capable and talented on a regular basis.”
C-COPE AHEAD
When you cope ahead, you prepare for events that you know are going to be difficult for you. This could be a class or work presentation, a job interview, or an upcoming test. Prepare for that situation both mentally and emotionally and maybe even physically! What do you need to do to be the most prepared that you can be? How do you prepare to regulate your emotions? What will help you feel more confident?
If you’re nervous about an upcoming job interview, you might prepare by researching common interview questions. You can take a mental walk through your work history and identify several impactful experiences to draw upon during the interview. Having this information ready to go will help alleviate anxiety when it’s time for your interview.
“When you cope ahead, you prepare for events that you know are going to be difficult for you.”
PLEASE
It’s hard to be emotionally healthy when you’re not physically healthy. The PLEASE skills in emotion regulation remind both parents and children of the importance of taking care of our bodies.
“The PLEASE skills in emotion regulation remind both parents and children of the importance of taking care of our bodies.”
P-Physical L-Illness
When you’re sick and miserable, it impacts your emotions negatively. When we don’t feel well, we are in a state of misery and dread. You’re not able to perform at your best, which impacts your emotions.
E-Eating
When you don’t have proper nutrition, you may feel sluggish and not have enough energy. Caffeine, for example, can make you anxious with a crash later. Instead, opt for food that provides steady energy throughout the day.
A-Avoiding mood-altering drugs
This means non-prescribed medications. Prescribed medication is managed and regulated to help you balance chemicals, and there’s nothing wrong with that. The key to this skill is to properly take medication. Mood-altering drugs are drugs such as street drugs, alcohol, and misusing prescriptions—substances used for self-medicating and not being monitored by a professional. Instead of helping you properly manage your emotions, these drugs will likely dysregulate your moods.
S-Sleep
Read your body and be in tune with the amount of sleep you need. Adequate, restful sleep provides you with the energy needed to complete daily tasks and manage your emotions. Have you ever cried over nothing when you felt exhausted? You’re not alone. When we’re tired, it’s easier to get overwhelmed and have less patience or more anxiety. Yet, when we’re adequately rested, we can readily manage those emotions.
E-Exercise
This skill is often neglected by both teens and busy adults. Exercise is crucial to our physical, emotional, and mental well-being. Exercise can decrease negative emotions such as anxiety and depression. Not only can it alleviate these symptoms in the moment, but over time it can also help you build resilience to negative emotions and support emotional regulation.
Don’t forget that “exercise” doesn’t have to mean high-intensity cardio or other exercises that stress burning the most calories in the least amount of time. In most countries, exercise looks very different. It’s a walk to the market, an evening bike ride with the family, or an afternoon in the garden. Don’t let the Americanized ideals of exercise overwhelm you and stop you from doing the activities you love.
Sunrise Uses ABC Please to Help Teens Heal
Prior to enrolling at Sunrise, many of our students felt they had no control over their emotions, leaving them feeling miserable and hopeless. The ABC PLEASE skills offer very specific steps that lead to more control of emotions and resiliency when unwanted emotions do creep in. Emotion regulation through the use of the PLEASE skills, such as exercise, helps students and their families have hope that they can change their emotional experiences and make decisions with a clearer mind.
At home, you can help your child improve emotion regulation by holding yourself and your child accountable to the ABC PLEASE skills. If you’re not engaged in these skills, you can’t expect them to be. By demonstrating your own self-care, you give your child permission to take care of themself as well.
“By demonstrating your own self-care, you give your child permission to take care of themself as well.”
We Are Committed To The Success Of Your Child, And Your Entire Family
Sunrise uses more comprehensive outcomes than any other fully integrated DBT program. By integrating DBT into every aspect of our program, your teen will live the skills, not just learn them. We focus on the family to create a healthy system in which your teen will thrive after returning home. Through therapy, activities, academics, and support, your teen will become a healthy young adult with a passion for life.
If practicing emotion regulation and other DBT skills at home hasn’t been enough to help your teen and family, we’re happy to discuss treatment options with you.
