Frequently Asked Questions
What is DBT?
Dialectial behavior therapy, developed by Marsha linehan, is extraordinarily effective at helping people manage overwhelming emotions. DBT combines standard cognitive-behavioral techniques for emotion regulation and reality-testing with concepts of distress tolerance, acceptance, and mindful awareness largely derived from Buddhist meditative practice.
Who benefits from DBT?
Individuals who may benefit from DBT include adolescents 14 years of age through high school and adults who have been diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder or people who experience any of the following: chronic suicidal thoughts, multiple suicide attempts, self-mutilation such as cutting, burning, piercing for the experience of the piercing, disordered eating; weight and body image issues, serial problematic relationships, over-spending, alcohol and other drug use (after a period of sobriety), isolation and chronic feeling of emptiness, emotional and behavioral distress related to issues of chronic pain.
How will DBT help?
You will learn skills that will help reduce the size of emotional waves and help you keep your balancewhen those emotions overwhelm you.
What are these skills?
Dialectical behavior therapy teaches four critically important skills:
1. DISTRESS TOLERANCE will help you cope better with painful events by building up your resiliency and giving you new ways to soften the effects of upsetting circumstances.
2. MINDFULNESS will help you experience more fully the present moment while focusing less on painful experiences from the past or frightening possibilites in the future. Mindfulness will also give you tools to overcome habitual, negative judgments about yourself and others.
3. EMOTION REGULATION skills will help you to recognize more clearly what you feel and then to observe each emotion without getting overwhelmed by it. The goal is to modulate your feelings without behaving in reactive, destructive wasy.
4. INTERPERSONAL EFFECTIVENESS gives you new tools to express your beliefs and needs, set limits, and negotiate solutions to problems; all the while protecting your relationships and treating others with respect.
What workbook is being used for this?
The Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills Workbook: Practical DBT Exercises for Learning Mindfulness, Interpersonal Effectiveness, Emotion Regulation & Distress Tolerance by McKay, Wood, and Brantley.
How will this skills group work?
I originally wanted to start this therapy group because a lot of people are financially unstable and the book itself is a little costly for those of you who are either in high school, or the cliché struggling college student.
You can take one of two routes in this therapy group. You can either purchase the book, and this is optional, and you could follow along that way or you can follow along with the weekly/bi-weekly postings of the new skill, or the sub-skill that will be posted. I will be making a great effort in scanning many of the exercises so you will be able to print them out if you'd like.
If you have the book, and are following along that way, you can simply write down the answers within the book. But if you aren't able to purchase the book, you can either use a physical notebook to copy down your answers, and use it for anything dbt-skills work group related or you can do this on your Tumblr. The choice is yours, whatever is more convenient for you.
" First developed for treating borderline personality disorder, dialectical behavior therapy has proven effective as treatment for a range of other mental health problems. "