DBT in WA and ID

Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) focuses on four areas: mindfulness, distress tolerance, emotion regulation, and interpersonal effectiveness. It is a very organized and structured method designed to help people cope with stress and regulate emotions in the moment. This is done through a heavy emphasis on mindfulness throughout all aspects of the therapy, so that other skills can be used to help you either solve the problem, feel differently about the problem, or tolerate the distress of the problem so that you don’t make the situation worse through action or inaction.

I have found that, for myself, listening to the dialectic part of DBT is very difficult. Black-and-white thinking/all-or-nothing thinking can cause a lot of negative reactions, because we only see two options as valid. This can create conflict or lead to us having boundaries that are too firm or having no boundaries at all.

DBT tends to help in giving a script for some situations, such as monitoring our energy levels and increasing awareness around them so that we can prevent a shutdown/meltdown. The grouping of the skills can also let us know if the situation is something that has to be dealt with in the moment or if we can push it away temporarily so that we can catch our breath. The communication section can also help give steps so that we can explain our thought processes, and some of the automatic thoughts/assumptions we are making, more succinctly.