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Date issued: June 2023

For review: June 2025

Ref: C-537/EL/Clinical Psychology/Lifestyle Management for Emotions

PDF:  Lifestyle Management for Emotions final June 2023.pdf[pdf] 144KB

General overview of interventions

• All CWP interventions are based on CBT. They usually last between 6-8 sessions and progress continues after the end of intervention, especially when new ideas and skills are practised at home

• The sessions can be with your child and/or you, face to face or via video and/or telephone call

• Attending regular sessions is important for change

 Lifestyle Management for Emotions

• 1 in 10 people are thought to have Alexythymia which is when a person has difficulty identifying and expressing emotions, more common for neurodiverse young people

• This can lead to a limited ability to communicate about emotions or ineffective communication

• We explore different emotions together and find out hope to cope better with more challenging ones

What we do together in sessions

• Identify 4 to 8 different emotions to focus on

• Explore each emotion, using games, role play, books and videos

• Use drawing, special interests and your child’s own words to illustrate each emotion

• Discover the connection between thoughts, feelings and behaviours

• Practise different coping skills to find out what helps with each emotion                

How can you help at home?

• As with all our interventions, it is really important that the young person practices the suggested techniques at home. As a caregiver, it would be great if you helped facilitate these tasks.

• Explore the different emotions together, relate different emotions to characters in a film, book or game or try acting them out with soft toys

• Play games that explore emotions in a safe, fun way (ask your therapist for ideas)

• Try asking “what emotions happened today?” instead of “how was school?”

• By providing gentle (but not pressured) reminders of the tasks that were agreed in session and practicing coping strategies when things are calm and settled. Making it a positive experience will motivate learning and support progress

• Although we understand it can be very tempting, it is really important not to ‘rush’. Please try to stick to the agreed tasks made in the session. If your child then chooses to do more, that is fantastic!

• Model the behaviours you would like to see, talk about your own feelings and practice coping strategies together

• Remember it is a journey for the young person and with you beside them, they can achieve great things!

Suggested self help resources

• “The Colour Monster” by Anna Llenas

• “The Great Big Book of Feelings” by Hoffman & Asquith

• “All Kinds of Feeling”s by Emma Brownjohn

• HappySnap by MindPanda – a CBT card game from Amazon

• Search YouTube for “Feeling and emotion. How to manage emotion” by English Learning Town

If you have any questions regarding this intervention or the CWP sessions, please do not hesitate to get in touch with your Wellbeing Practitioner!