Beyond "Just Think Positive": Unhooking Children and Teens from their Inner Critic 

Friday, April 10, 2026
9:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.

Zoom Webinar

Registration Fee: $50

OVERVIEW: 

As clinicians, we frequently encounter youth trapped by a relentless, critical inner voice. In the DNA-V model of adolescent development, this voice is known as the "Advisor"—a cognitive process that evolved to keep us safe by constantly evaluating, judging, and predicting danger. While the Advisor is essential for navigating the world, it can easily become a "problem-finding machine" that leads to rigid rule-following, cognitive distortion, and intense self-criticism.

When working with dysregulated or self-critical youth, our clinical instinct is often to offer reassurance, praise, or logical evidence to challenge their negative self-concepts. However, for youth with a history of trauma or an invalidating environment, attempting to argue with or logically restructure these deep-seated beliefs frequently backfires, leading to defensiveness and further entanglement in the Advisor's web.

This presentation offers a paradigm shift drawing on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), and the DNA-V framework. Rather than trying to delete or neutralize negative thoughts, clinicians will learn how to help clients change the function of their verbal behavior, creating psychological distance from their inner critic.

OBJECTIVES: Join us to learn actionable, evidence-based strategies to help your young clients:

• Normalize the Negative Bias: Learn experiential exercises to help youth understand that their negative thoughts are normal evolutionary survival tools. Destigmatizing these thoughts reduces the experiential avoidance and secondary emotions (like shame) that fuel clinical distress.
• Spot "Thinking Mistakes" and "Check the Facts": Equip clients with DBT skills to identify cognitive traps—such as catastrophizing, mind-reading, and all-or-nothing thinking—and teach them how to separate objective reality from their mind's extreme interpretations.
• Master "Unhooking" and Decentering: Move beyond traditional cognitive restructuring. Discover developmentally appropriate metaphors and defusion techniques that teach youth to observe their thoughts as passing mental events (the "Noticer" space) rather than literal truths that must be obeyed.
• Shift from Self-Esteem to Self-Compassion: Understand the clinical pitfalls of striving for high self-esteem, which is often fragile and contingent on performance. Learn how to cultivate genuine self-compassion, helping teens treat themselves with kindness during failure, which research shows is far more effective for building long-term resilience and motivation.
• Activate the "Discoverer": Help youth take values-based risks and try new behaviors in the physical world, even while their internal Advisor is shouting discouragement.

WHO SHOULD ATTEND:
This continuing education zoom webinar is designed for psychologists, school counselors, social workers, case managers, and therapists looking for experiential, transdiagnostic tools to empower youth to stop fighting their minds and start building vital, values-driven lives. The community is welcome to attend. 

CONTINUING EDUCATION:                                                              
Mental Health America of the Heartland is a pre-approved provider for social workers through the Kansas Behavioral Sciences Regulatory Board (BSRB) Provider Number 17-007. This continuing education provider is approved  3.0 hours for social workers and accepted for psychologists, professional counselors, masters prepared psychologists, marriage and family therapists and addiction counselors.

In order to receive continuing education credit and a certificate of attendance for this zoom webinar, you will be required to participate in the live zoom webinar. You will receive a zoom invitation via email within a week of webinar. Also you will need to take an online exam and complete an evaluation that will be sent in a separate email after the live zoom webinar. You must pass the test by 70%. The zoom webinar will not be available by recording and viewing at any other time.