{"id":7602,"date":"2024-06-01T08:30:00","date_gmt":"2024-05-31T22:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/onthecoastpublications.com.au\/onthecoastfamilies\/?p=7602"},"modified":"2024-04-07T22:56:02","modified_gmt":"2024-04-07T12:56:02","slug":"central-coast-teens-mental-health","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/onthecoastpublications.com.au\/onthecoastfamilies\/central-coast-teens-mental-health\/","title":{"rendered":"Coffee with a Coastie – Teens Struggling? Central Coast Therapist Alex Wilson Shares Tips for Parents"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Listen to the full interview\u00a0here<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Welcome to Coffee with a Coastie. I had the pleasure of sitting down with Mindful Recovery Services founder, Alex Wilson. After being helped by counsellors to navigate her own difficult teenage years, Alex has gone on to forge a successful career in mental health, helping teenagers and young adults. Alex\u2019s journey is one of inspiration, so I was excited to get the opportunity to chat with Alex.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How did you come to live on the Central Coast?
<\/strong>My husband\u2019s originally from the Central Coast, and when we first met in Sydney working at Royal North Shore Hospital, he introduced me to Avoca. Then when we were planning to have kids, we wanted to move out of Sydney, for financial reasons and the environment here just seemed good for raising kids. So we moved here when our eldest was four weeks old and we\u2019ve been here ever since.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before working as a social worker at Royal North Shore Hospital what did you do and what influenced you to become a mental health social worker?<\/strong>
I went straight from school into a social work degree at Sydney Uni, then straight into hospital social work. Starting in critical care settings, like emergency departments then I fell into mental health after having had exposure to mental health working in emergency departments. It wasn\u2019t my plan to specialize in mental health, but a job came up that sounded interesting, and I took it. It was in community mental health, and I found that I loved it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It all happened in a roundabout way when I was a teenager, I was very difficult. I gave my parents hell and did not want to do what I was told; my teenage years were quite rough, I was getting kicked out of school and just not complying to anything. My parents ended up sending me to a boarding school in America for two and a half years, so that it got me out of the country. At the boarding school I was lucky enough to meet counsellors that I bonded with who helped me navigate that time of my life. That\u2019s why I went into social work and then moved into mental health so that I could help teenagers and young adults in particular.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You specialise in Dialectical Behavioural Therapy (DBT), which was developed in the late 1980s to treat borderline personality disorder and chronic suicidal thoughts. Can you share a little about DBT?<\/strong>
Until the development of DBT there was really no treatment for borderline personality disorder. When DBT came along, finally we had something to treat this. Borderline personality disorder can be a funny diagnosis, because it\u2019s a diagnosis of exclusion. People usually get diagnosed when doctors are like, it\u2019s not anxiety, it\u2019s not depression, it\u2019s not bipolar, it\u2019s not this, it\u2019s not that, it must be borderline personality disorder. One of the most difficult things about Borderline Personality Disorder is it often involves chronic suicidal ideation. It is still one of the deadliest mental illnesses, having the second highest fatality rate behind anorexia nervosa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The difference with DBT is that it\u2019s aimed at people with risky behaviours, whereas other psychological therapies are not, and one of the problems we still have in our community is that we have this gap between \u201cregular\u201d psychology services which are for mild to moderate acuity issues. Then you\u2019ve got nothing up until the hospital services, which are acute mental health services for people that need hospital admission. There\u2019s a big gap in between, and that\u2019s where DBT fits in. It was designed to work with risk, and the original research showed it to be a gold standard for treatment of borderline personality disorder and suicidality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now lots of studies also show it\u2019s effective for drug and alcohol issues, eating disorders and when people are struggling to regulate their emotions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mindful Recovery Services focuses on providing mental health treatment and support for teens and young adults struggling with complex mental health issues. What was it that inspired you to go out on your own?<\/strong>
When I was working in the public mental health system, I worked within community mental health teams and inpatient psychiatric wards, where I was involved in starting a DBT program. This was my first exposure to DBT therapy, where I got to see first hand how effective it was for clients that hadn\u2019t responded to other things before. When I decided to go out on my own it made sense for me to focus on DBT because I\u2019d seen how effective it was. I really loved working with that client group who previously had really poor outcomes. Up until we had a DBT program, we just couldn\u2019t offer them very much. I was passionate about DBT and wanted to move into private practice because to be honest, I got sick of all the red tape. I felt like there was so much that would take up our days that we barely got to see clients in between it all. So I wanted to move into private practice where the bulk of the work is just seeing people and not having all of the other bureaucratic stuff to deal with.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lastly, if a parent is concerned about their child\u2019s mental health but is unsure how to approach them about it, what would your advice be?<\/strong>
The first piece of advice I always give is choose your timing wisely. Don\u2019t try and talk to them when they\u2019re stressed out, just home from school, in the middle of an online game or in a text battle with their friends. Try and create activities where you know you can talk to them. This might be when you get them in the car and you have a captive audience, going with them to take the dog for a walk or taking them out to lunch or a shopping trip, timing is really important. When everybody\u2019s calm, that\u2019s when you\u2019re going to have your greatest chance. Otherwise, you\u2019ll just get a door slammed in your face.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then ask questions, listen, and just shut up. Talk less, listen more. An example could be that you say, hey I\u2019ve noticed you don\u2019t seem like yourself recently or you seem upset and\/or stressed out, do you want to share what\u2019s going on. Then just shut up and listen. If they say they don\u2019t want to talk about it, respect that and let them know if they do want to talk, you\u2019re there for them. You could say, I don\u2019t have the answers, but I\u2019m happy to listen, that will often get them talking. What young people don\u2019t want is advice. But if you listen first, they may be open to some advice if it\u2019s delivered in the right way. But you have to listen first. You could tell them that you\u2019ve noticed that they are having a hard time, and you\u2019re just there to listen. Plant the seed and leave it alone. You can revisit it, and if eventually they start talking you\u2019ve got to stick to listening.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Don\u2019t jump into, well what you should do is ABC, just listen, validate, and ask them what they think might help. If they don\u2019t know or don\u2019t want to share, you can start to plant seeds and ask; do you want to maybe talk to a counsellor? I could ask around and see who might be good. Do you want me to research it for you? Do you want me to book the appointment?
You can do all these things to help without saying, you should do this. As soon as you tell a young person what they should do, they\u2019re not going to do it. Listen more, talk less.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you are concerned about suicidal stuff, ask flat out, just ask. And if they say they are having suicidal thoughts, the mental health access line is a good place to start. They\u2019re a community team and if there\u2019s any concern of imminent risk, they can get all the right services involved right away. If not, they can direct you to where to go. If you\u2019re not sure, just ask. It\u2019s not going to put the idea in their mind. That\u2019s not how that works. Young people are aware that suicide is a thing. It\u2019s not like we\u2019re introducing them to the idea. Research says around 90% of people who are having suicidal thoughts will tell someone before they act on them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If we ask the question, we are creating an environment where we\u2019re saying, I want to know if you\u2019re having these sorts of thoughts. This way we can intervene early so that it doesn\u2019t get worse and worse overtime. If you get a response, you\u2019re not going to freak out and you\u2019re not going to ignore it, you\u2019re going to do something in the middle, this tells the young person, oh, okay, this is something that I can talk about. And we want them to talk about it so that we can do something about it. It\u2019s not going to give them the idea. They are very aware that this is something that happens. So, if we provide an environment where they can talk about it, they will. Then we obviously want to take the steps to do what we need to do, to keep them safe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If anyone would like to find out more about Alex and the work she is doing to help teens and young adults, you can find her online at mindfulrecovery.com.au<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Click here <\/a>to hear the full conversation where I talk to Alex about:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 Building resilience in children
\u2022 Practical ways to deal with and work through anxiety
\u2022 Her love of Martial Arts for her own mental health
\u2022 Alex\u2019s most vital DBT skill essential for change, the Distress Tolerance Curve
\u2022 Identifying and understanding your values
\u2022 Advice if living in a difficult environment
\u2022 The diver\u2019s reflex and how to use it when experiencing panic disorder
\u2022 And so much more to help you and your child<\/p>\n\n\n\n

.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Listen to the full interview\u00a0here Welcome to Coffee with a Coastie. I had the pleasure of sitting down with Mindful Recovery Services founder, Alex Wilson. After being helped by counsellors…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7604,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sync_status":"","episode_type":"audio","audio_file":"","castos_file_data":"","podmotor_file_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[130,35],"tags":[116],"series":[170],"class_list":["post-7602","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-coffee-with-a-coastie","category-health-wellbeing","tag-article","series-on-the-coast-families"],"episode_featured_image":"https:\/\/onthecoastpublications.com.au\/onthecoastfamilies\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2024\/04\/Central-Coast-Therapist-Alex-Wilson.jpg","episode_player_image":"https:\/\/onthecoastpublications.com.au\/onthecoastfamilies\/wp-content\/plugins\/seriously-simple-podcasting\/assets\/images\/no-album-art.png","download_link":"","player_link":"","audio_player":false,"episode_data":{"playerMode":"dark","subscribeUrls":{"apple_podcasts":{"key":"apple_podcasts","url":"","label":"Apple Podcasts","class":"apple_podcasts","icon":"apple-podcasts.png"},"stitcher":{"key":"stitcher","url":"","label":"Stitcher","class":"stitcher","icon":"stitcher.png"},"google_podcasts":{"key":"google_podcasts","url":"","label":"Google Podcasts","class":"google_podcasts","icon":"google-podcasts.png"},"spotify":{"key":"spotify","url":"","label":"Spotify","class":"spotify","icon":"spotify.png"}},"rssFeedUrl":"https:\/\/onthecoastpublications.com.au\/onthecoastfamilies\/feed\/podcast\/on-the-coast-families","embedCode":"

Coffee with a Coastie – Teens Struggling? Central Coast Therapist Alex Wilson Shares Tips for Parents<\/a><\/blockquote>