Building on a skill called emotion regulation, dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) offers life skills to promote mental health and a positive sense of self. DBT is for anyone who has had problems regulating their emotions or using healthy coping skills. DBT is an evidence-based treatment for a wide variety of disorders. Dialectical Behavioral Therapy was initially intended to treat borderline personality disorder (BPD) but has been adapted to treat mental health conditions, including anger management, post-traumatic stress disorder, eating disorders, and self-harm.
This workbook replaces destructive behavior with healthier behavior, communicating more effectively, and connecting with others. Dialectical Behavioral Therapy is associated with significant improvements in patient functioning. So here I list some strategies that are used in Dialectical Behavioral Therapy so let’s start;
Distress tolerance
It is a strategy that helps you to accept all situations. It includes distraction, improving the moment, self-soothing, and thinking about the pros and cons of tolerating stress. This empowers you to cope with all situations with a positive attitude.
Interpersonal effectiveness
Interpersonal effectiveness is the ability to communicate your views and stand up for your rights in a way that neither harm nor offends others. People skilled at interpersonal effectiveness know how to give and receive feedback constructively, get what they need from others without putting others down, and approach others with respect. The purpose of this course is to help you understand how you can communicate with greater clarity, honesty, sensitivity, and assertiveness rather than saying nothing, avoiding conflict, or being too passive or aggressive.
Emotion regulation
This course focuses on building your emotional awareness and interpersonal behavior skills, allowing you to become better at detecting and regulating emotions to enable effective communicative collaborations. Our goal is to help you develop these skills through a range of approaches:
(a) instruction
(b) interactive activities that help you identify, name, and change emotions
(c) coaching for skill practice in real-life interactions.
So If you’re not sure if Dialectical Behavioral Therapy is right for you, get in touch with your therapist. We also suggest reaching out to a Dialectical Behavioral Therapy support group for more information and a sense of what it’s like to be treated with this kind of therapy. You’ll find that we’re all here to talk about how Dialectical Behavioral Therapy has helped us or someone close to us and what to expect from the training. You can’t go wrong by trying DBT; give it a chance!
