Hannah Grace
Just like finding the right size among dozens of shoes, there are many different forms of psychotherapy to choose from. Depending on your condition, what works for others may not work for you. If you’re dealing with depression, self-harm, suicidal feelings, or extreme emotions, and your therapy doesn’t seem to be working, you might want to try dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT). Originally developed in the 70s to treat Borderline Personality Disorder, DBT is a type of cognitive behavioral therapy which uses acceptance and change to transform negative thinking patterns and behaviors. Read on to find out what this form of psychotherapy can do for you.
DBT involves teaching you four strategies that are essential in the therapeutic process:
Mindfulness
One of the core ideas behind all elements of DBT, mindfulness is considered a foundation for other skills taught to clients. It helps you embrace strong emotions and be present in a non-judgmental way. Attuned to what’s going on within and outside of you, you learn how to stay calm and avoid succumbing to negative thought patterns or impulsive behavior.
Distress Tolerance
Unlike how other psychotherapies deal with distressing events, DBT makes you find meaning in such circumstances and learn to bear the pain well. Distress tolerance skills stem from mindfulness skills, which as previously discussed, involves recognizing negative situations and their impact in a calm manner. Being able to act wisely instead of reacting with destructive intense emotions.
Emotion Regulation
When you’re experiencing mental health problems or difficult life situations, controlling your emotions is not easy. However, letting your emotions get the better of you will only harm you in the end. Here are some of the skills included in DBT designed to help you regulate your emotions:
- Identifying and labeling emotions
- Identifying obstacles to changing emotions
- Increasing positive emotional events
- Reducing vulnerability
- Increasing mindfulness to current emotions
- Applying distress tolerance techniques
All in all, it’s important to recognize your feelings, make use of opposite-reactions (smiling when you’re disappointed), learn ways to cope, and apply mindfulness to current emotions to remain stable and alert for negative circumstances.
Interpersonal Effectiveness
DBT skills training includes effective strategies for proper communication, navigating conflict, assertiveness, and expressing your needs. They intend to help you as much as possible to meet your goal in a specific situation, without causing damage to anyone, your self-respect, or the relationship involved. For instance, saying no properly and meaning it instead of lying to please the other person. These are acronyms created to guide you:
DEAR MAN (conveying your needs)
- Describe your situation using specific factual statements about a recent situation.
- Express the emotions experienced when the situation occurred, why this is an issue, and how you feel about it.
- Assert yourself by asking clearly and specifically for what behavior change the person seeks.
- Reinforce your position by offering a positive consequence if you were to get what you want.
- Be mindful of the situation by focusing on what you want and disregard distractions through validation/empathy and redirecting back to the point.
- Appear confident and assertive, even if you don’t feel confident.
- Negotiate with a hesitant person and come to a comfortable compromise on your request.
GIVE (giving something)
- Gentle – use appropriate language. No verbal or physical attacks, no put downs, avoid sarcasm unless you’re sure the person is alright with it, and be courteous and non-judgmental.
- Interested – when the person you’re speaking to is talking about something, act interested in what’s being said. Maintain eye contact, ask questions, etc. Avoid using your phone during an in-person conversation.
- Validate – show understanding and sympathy. Validation can be shown through words, body language, and/or facial expressions.
- Easy Manner – be calm and comfortable during conversation; use humor; smile.
FAST (keeping self-respect)
- Fair – be fair to both yourself and the other person.
- Apologies – don’t apologize more than once for what you’ve done ineffectively or for something that was ineffective.
- Stick to Your Values – stay true to what you believe in and stand by it. Don’t allow others to encourage action against your own values.
- Truthful – don’t lie. Lying can only pile up and damage relationships and your self-respect.
During DBT’s first few sessions, the therapist helps you get comfortable with the idea of therapy and once you form a trusting relationship together, you begin to understand how acceptance and change works. When you learn to accept, change naturally follows. It becomes much easier to take action. Later on, you’ll get assistance in maintaining that change and avoiding relapse. Dialectical behavioral therapy is a good form of psychotherapy that’s perfect not only for healing, but also for transformation.
Can you relate? Share your thoughts about dialectical behavioral therapy below. We’d love to hear them!
