Little Dove Psychology offers virtual DBT-informed therapy for teens, kids, and college students across Texas, teaching emotion regulation and distress tolerance skills, with sessions with our licensed psychologists billed in network to Aetna, BCBS of Texas, and Optum/UnitedHealthcare.
Your daughter's big feelings are getting out of control. You watch her struggle to manage her sadness, her anger, the storms that move through her, and you do not know how else to help her. You have tried what you know to try. You have read the things, said the right words, given her space, given her structure, given her you. None of it is touching this.
You know struggling with big feelings is normal. You have told yourself this many times. But what you are watching is not that. What you are watching is something that has gotten bigger than her, something she does not know how to ride out.
The sadness goes deeper than it should and stays longer than it should. The anger comes faster than it should and lands harder than it should. She is the one in it, but the whole house feels it.
If you are the young person reading this for yourself, the same things are true. Your feelings are real. They are not too much. There is help that actually helps.
She is not broken. She is a young person whose feelings run bigger than her body has learned to hold. There is a difference, and it matters.
Some people come into the world feeling everything more loudly. With the right support, these kids, teens, and college students learn skills that help them ride the waves instead of being swept away by them.
Clinicians call this emotion dysregulation: feelings that come on faster, run bigger, and last longer than the situation calls for. It is common in kids and teens who also have ADHD, anxiety, or depression, and it responds well to skills-based work. Distress tolerance, the ability to get through the worst moment without making it worse, is the skill most families ask us for first.
You are not overreacting. You are seeing your kid clearly. That is the first step.
Little Dove Psychology is a small group practice. The work described on this page is provided by Antonette Anuwe, LPA, the practice's DBT specialist, along with Dr. Kristin Kroll, PhD, and Dr. Meghan Kraenbring Comerford, PsyD. Meet our team →
The work is grounded in evidence-based approaches for emotion dysregulation and distress tolerance, delivered online across Texas from our Austin base, along with parent coaching when family support is part of the picture. In practice, that usually looks like:
This is not about teaching her to feel less. It is about helping her hold what she feels, with skills she can keep for the rest of her life.
If your child or college student is in immediate crisis or having thoughts of harming themselves, please call or text 988 (the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline), call 911, or go to your nearest emergency room.
If you’ve been searching for DBT for teens near me, here is what matters more than the zip code: the fit between the approach and your teenager. Because our DBT-informed therapy is fully online, your teen can work with a clinician who specializes in adolescent emotion regulation from anywhere in Texas (Austin, Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, Plano, Southlake) and PSYPACT states, without waiting months for a local opening.
With teens, the DBT-informed work centers on four skill areas, taught in a way that respects that they are teenagers, not small adults or case studies:
Parent coaching runs alongside the teen’s work, because a teenager practicing new skills inside an unchanged family system is doing it on hard mode. For younger kids, see our child therapy page; for young adults, therapy for college students.
DBT-informed skills work with our licensed psychologists is billed in network to Aetna, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Texas, and Optum/UnitedHealthcare (including Oscar plans administered by Optum). Members pay their plan’s copay or cost share rather than the self-pay rate, and that covers the emotion regulation and distress tolerance work on this page, the parent coaching that runs alongside it, and family sessions when they are part of the plan. Sessions with Antonette Anuwe, LPA, the practice’s DBT specialist, are self-pay at $150 because the LPA does not bill insurance; HSA and FSA funds apply. On the free consultation we look at your plan and your teen’s needs and match you with a clinician your plan covers or the self-pay option that fits. We do not accept Medicaid or CHIP. Details are on our Fees & Insurance page.
Yes. Little Dove Psychology offers DBT-informed therapy online for teens, kids, and college students located in Texas and the other PSYPACT participating states. DBT-informed means we draw from the Dialectical Behavior Therapy framework and skill set (mindfulness, emotion regulation, distress tolerance, and interpersonal effectiveness) in individual sessions with parent coaching, without delivering a manualized comprehensive DBT program or a skills group. Most families start the same week they reach out.
Sessions with our licensed psychologists are billed in network to Aetna, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Texas, and Optum/UnitedHealthcare (including Oscar plans administered by Optum), so members pay their plan’s copay or cost share. Sessions with Antonette Anuwe, LPA, our DBT specialist, are self-pay at $150 because the LPA does not bill insurance, and HSA and FSA funds apply. On the free consultation we match you with a clinician your plan covers or the self-pay option that fits. We do not accept Medicaid or CHIP.
DBT stands for Dialectical Behavior Therapy. It was originally developed for adults with intense emotion dysregulation and is now widely used with kids and teens. It teaches concrete skills in four areas: mindfulness, emotion regulation, distress tolerance, and interpersonal effectiveness. It fits situations where feelings hit hard and last long, where small triggers produce big reactions, or where a young person’s emotional intensity is interfering with school, friendships, or family life.
Distress tolerance is the ability to get through an intensely upsetting moment without making it worse. In DBT-informed therapy we teach concrete skills your child can actually use in the moment, like grounding, paced breathing, and ways to ride out a wave of emotion until it passes. Kids and teens practice these with a clinician and then with parents at home, so the skills are there when they are needed most.
Signs worth a consult include feelings that come on fast and bigger than the situation, meltdowns or shutdowns that take a long time to recover from, impulsive words or actions that are later regretted, black-and-white thinking, relationships that keep blowing up over small things, or upset that spills over into the whole day, sleep, and family life. Emotion dysregulation often shows up alongside ADHD, anxiety, or depression. A free 15-minute consultation is the simplest place to start.
For younger kids, the work uses concrete, playful DBT-informed skills and a lot of parent coaching so the same language and routines are used at home. For teens, it moves to direct skill-building in emotion regulation, distress tolerance, and mindfulness, plus practice using those skills in real situations like friendships and school, with parent coaching alongside. For college students, the focus is often managing intense emotions and impulsivity while living independently; if she is 18 or older she can reach out herself, and family involvement is on her terms.
Three things tend to help. First, name the emotion: a teen who can label what she is feeling has more leverage on it. Second, validate before you problem-solve. Acknowledging the feeling actually helps it pass faster, not slower. Third, teach the skill of pause-then-respond rather than react. Specific DBT-informed tools like the TIPP skills (temperature, intense exercise, paced breathing, paired muscle relaxation) can interrupt intense waves of emotion in the moment. If the intensity is interfering with daily life (school, friendships, sleep, family), that is a signal that professional support could help.
Yes. DBT-informed skills work well over telehealth for many kids, teens, and college students. We practice grounding, distress tolerance, and emotion regulation strategies together on screen, review how they went in real situations between sessions, and parents can join from wherever they are. Because the work is fully online, teens anywhere in Texas (Austin, Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, Plano, Frisco, Southlake, and everywhere in between) can see a clinician who specializes in adolescent emotion regulation without waiting for a local opening.
Sessions are 60 minutes. It varies with the young person and what is getting in the way, but many families see meaningful change in roughly three to six months of consistent skills work. More intense emotion dysregulation, or emotion regulation stacked with other concerns, can take longer. We track progress with outcome measures and work toward your child managing big emotions without needing weekly therapy.
If your teen is in immediate danger, call 911 or go to the nearest emergency room. For thoughts of suicide, call or text 988 to reach the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at any hour. If your teen has had these thoughts but is not in immediate danger, tell us on the consultation call; skills-based work and a collaborative safety plan are built for exactly this. Dr. Kroll’s guide on how to talk to your teen about suicide can help in the meantime.
Take the first step with a free 15-minute consultation. Call (512) 240-2633 or contact us online.
“As a fellow mental health professional, I have had the privilege of collaborating with Dr. Kroll on several cases, and I cannot recommend her enough. She brings an exceptional level of expertise in child psychology, paired with a deep sense of empathy and professionalism. Her therapeutic interventions are evidence-based.”
“I have worked with Dr. Kroll professionally and she really knows her stuff!! Dr. Kroll is one of the most intelligent providers I have worked with. She uses evidence based models, which is so important. Anyone who gets to work with Dr. Kroll is very lucky.”
“Kristin is a very caring, compassionate and thorough therapist. She engages on a 1:1 level with varied age groups to better suit their individual needs. Professional, approachable, and respects privacy.”
