Dialectical Behavior Therapy DBT: How It Works, What It Helps, and More

Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) is an evidence-based talk therapy that can reduce the risk of depression relapse. Here’s what research and experts say about what it is, how it impacts your health, and how to cope with this feeling. Everyday Health follows strict sourcing guidelines to ensure the accuracy of its content, outlined in our editorial policy. We use only trustworthy sources, including peer-reviewed studies, board-certified medical experts, patients with lived experience, and information from top institutions.

• They will evaluate your symptoms, treatment history, and therapy goals to see if DBT might be a good fit.
• So, if you’re going through a difficult situation and having a hard time using healthy coping techniques, you can call your therapist.
• When you practice opposite action, you’re not letting your emotions have the reins.
• To further help you practice these skills, you complete homework outside of your sessions.
• Emotion regulation skills help you label your emotions without judging them.

The benefits of additional therapy to the treatment of severe emotion regulation dysfunction are clear, but it’s the group aspect that really helps explain its importance. Many clients who participate in DBT are struggling with personality or mood disorders and can benefit immensely from emotion regulation skills. Certified practitioners of DBT offer acceptance and support to people in therapy. Many of the people they work with have conditions described as “difficult to treat.” They work to develop techniques for achieving goals, improving well-being, and effecting lasting positive change. DBT skills training is often done in groups and is accompanied by individual treatment and coaching from a therapist.

Overview of DBT

You will learn to listen and communicate more effectively, deal with challenging people, and respect yourself and others. It’s important to go to all of your scheduled individual DBT therapy sessions and group skill training sessions. Many therapists believe that the treatment for borderline personality disorder, in particular, can often take several years. Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) is especially effective for people who have difficulty managing and regulating their emotions.

• Some of these, like self-isolating or avoidance, don’t do much help, though they may help you temporarily feel better.
• Some believe this combination of techniques is part of what makes DBT so effective.
• Someone will be available to talk with you 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
• This can include substance abuse to numb the feelings or some type of immediate self-destructive action.
• Research also suggests that DBT may also be useful in the treatment of children with disruptive mood dysregulation disorder.
• If you’re not accepting something, you’ll be so busy fighting that reality that you don’t have the energy to put towards trying to change it” (Tartakovsky, 2015).

In a clinical setting learning all the skills typically takes six months. Kerwin says DBT may also require too much of a time commitment for some people, like parents without child care or those with a busy work schedule. That’s because DBT often involves three or more hours of therapy a week between individual and group sessions, plus filling out diary cards in between.

Distress tolerance is the ability to manage emotional distress in the moment, using techniques such as distraction.

In the group, members typically discuss new skills, practical work, and homework assignments. According to older research, each group typically comprises 4–10 participants. Through DBT, people can learn interpersonal skills, such as listening, assertiveness, and other social skills.

The issues faced by many who participate in DBT can be complex and severe. Due to this, a consultation team is considered essential for DBT providers. It can offer support, motivation, and therapy to the therapists working with difficult issues.

Core Mindfulness

If you’re interested in learning more about how to practice mindfulness, check out our post on mindfulness exercises and techniques. These detailed, science-based exercises will help you or your clients enjoy the benefits of mindfulness and create positive shifts in their mental, physical, and emotional health. These skills are intended to help clients function effectively when trying to change something (e.g., making a request) or in trying to resist changes (e.g., refusing a request). The intention is to aid the client in meeting their goals in each situation while avoiding any damage to the relationship or to the client’s self-respect (Psych Central, 2016).

The information on the diary card lets the therapist know how to allocate session time. Life-threatening or self-injurious behavior takes priority, not surprisingly. The therapist and patient discuss more skillful ways to solve emotional and life problems. In addition to keeping patients present-focused, it slows down emotional reactivity, affording people time to summon healthy coping skills in the midst of distressing situations. It’s an approach to therapy that can help you learn to cope with difficult emotions.

When you practice opposite action, you’re not letting your emotions have the reins. Instead, you’re cultivating awareness of your feelings (“I know how I feel”) and being intentional about taking an action that allows you to walk a different path. Emotional regulation, the fourth of the core DBT skills, teaches you how to gain control over your emotions rather than letting your emotions control you. Radical acceptance is another DBT skill that can help you learn to tolerate distress. In all, it takes around six months to complete the skills training modules following the standard DBT schedule. The modules are often repeated, however, meaning that many people spend a year or longer in a DBT program.

Therapists use dialectics to help people accept the parts of themselves they do not like. They also use dialectics to provide motivation and encouragement to address the change of those parts. Synthesizing polar opposites can reduce tension and help keep therapy moving forward. DBT draws mindfulness techniques from Zen Buddhism to use here-and-now presence of mind.

What are the benefits of DBT therapy?

Checking with your primary care physician, other therapists, or your local college, university, or medical center could all be helpful options. For example, if you feeling very sad and self-critical, your emotions may be telling you to lie down in a dark room. Opposite action would be getting out of the house, getting sunlight, and watching the sunset. You can use these DBT skills in all aspects of your life, particularly those you may find more challenging.

• Working with BPD and other hard-to-treat conditions can be challenging for therapists.
• It is important to remember that this should not be used in place of professional help.
• These skills include “what” skills or skills that answer the question “What do I do to practice core mindfulness skills?
• Unlike with most other therapies, with DBT your therapist is available by phone for in-the-moment support.
• To practice this technique, list some examples of when you have acted opposite to your current emotion.

For example, instead of coping with stress caused by a difficult boss with self-injury, substance abuse, or anxiety, the client learns to reduce the stress and be more tolerant of the stress. You may for example learn mindfulness techniques to make you more aware of triggers and your response. Distress tolerance dialectical behavioral therapy and acceptance techniques could help you with self-soothing techniques or radical acceptance. Emotional regulation can help you balance emotional urges with their opposites. And interpersonal effectiveness skills might help you be more assertive with your boss, set boundaries or find another job.