Create a Continuum

Many teens (including me) have an unrealistic view of themselves, or situations that they are in. They usually have extreme, black and white views, magnifying every detail of the problem and they can't recognise anything in-between. This is where creating a 'continuum' can be an extremely helpful tool in distinguishing how 'bad' something is, or to what extent it is 'bad'. It can help you to review your understanding of worth, goodness or weakness.

To explain what exactly a 'continuum' is, lets take an example of a teenager with severe feelings of guilt, and they believe themselves to be the most evil person in the world.

They should begin with a straight line representing the extremes of good and evil - good at one end, and evil at the other. Then, they should place an X on the line representing where they see themselves and it is likely that they would put the X nearest the evil end. They should contemplate their own, personal evil attributes, before putting other evil characters on the continuum. Adolf Hitler or Josef Stalin may be interesting individuals to consider. The teenager will then probably find themselves having to extend the line to accommodate the newcomers. Then they should fill in the extreme good end of the scale, writing people down that they admire, who they know. Then what about placing other more famous people, such as Mother Teresa. They'll probably need to extend the continuum in the opposite direction. Then finally they should put down other friends and acquaintances in the continuum as well.

At the end of this process, the teenager may still not like themselves very much, but at least they should begin to question their assumptions of being the most evil person on the planet.

You can also use this method to asses how bad situations actually are that you find extremely difficult and it will help you to put many things in your life into perspective. Don't just try to visualise it in your head, writing it down is much more effective as you will see the full picture and it will help you to view things in context.