What Is DBT?
Dialectical Behavior Therapy
The Most Comprehensive Curriculum of Coping Skills we have Today!
DBT or Dialectical Behavior Therapy, was originally developed by Marcia Linehan for individuals with Pervasive Emotional Dysregulation. It is now being successful adapted and researched for Clinical and Non-Clinical populations of people who can benefit from regulation of Anxiety, Mood, and Behavior.
DBT is now a Prevention Model that is taught in Schools
What Are The Components of Comprehensive DBT?
If Your Therapist Doesn't Offer These Components, It's Not DBT !
DBT Individual Therapy
Is a structured form of individual CBT therapy in which the DBT Therapist helps the client prioritize “target symptoms” to be worked on. It begins with “pre-treatment”, engagement, and enhancing motivation to change. The DBT Therapist has the client track emotions and behaviors on a daily basis, 7 days a week, and utilizes the DBT Diary Card and Behavioral Chain Analysis to produce insight and change.
DBT Skills Training Groups
The DBT Coping Skills occur in a supportive and safe group setting, where the curriculum can be taught in a complete and thorough curriculum manner.
DBT Phone Coaching
The DBT Therapist offers phone coaching to their DBT individual client The client is encouraged to take advantage of this to be reminded to utilize their DBT skills in a tough moment and as a preventative measure to refrain from a self-destructive behavior.
DBT Consultation Team for the DBT Therapist
The Intensively-Trained DBT Practitioner participates in a consultation team with other formally trained DBT Practitioners to consult with. The DBT Consultation Team is a support to the therapist to help make sure they are providing this evidenced-based treatment in the “best practice” possible.
What Are The Formal Coping Skill Sets Taught In DBT?
Core Mindfulness:
The practice of being fully aware and present in the moment, connected, and tolerate full emotional experiencing.
Emotion Regulation:
How to identify and manage emotions, by reducing reactivity and building upon positive life experience and good coping skills.
Distress Tolerance:
How to tolerate and experience emotional pain and anxiety without engaging in self-destructive behavior or avoiding feelings., learn to successfully “urge surf” and not self-harm in any way.
Interpersonal Effectiveness:
Learn effective communication skills; how to ask for what you want, set boundaries, while maintaining self-respect; learn how to have successful and positive relationships with others.
Middle Path:
Learn validation, dialectics, effective communication. Middle Path DBT skills help families be less polarized, and have more mutual understanding and peace.
What Are The Areas Of Dysregulation That The DBT Skills Are Designed To Treat And Improve?
Emotional Dysregulation:
Difficulties with managing emotions and anxiety, mood instability, impulsiveness,
and problems with anger.
Cognitive Dysregulation:
Catastrophic, Black-and-White, or All-or-Nothing Thinking
Self Dysregulation:
Feelings of emptiness or disconnection. Feelings of lack of self-concept and self-worth
Behavioral Dysregulation:
Impulsive and self-harming behaviors, behaviors that can makes one’s life worse not better.
Interpersonal Dysregulation:
Difficulty maintaining positive relationships, fears of rejection and abandonment
Self-Management Dysregulation:
Mood-Dependent Behavior and Procrastination
What Are The Stages That The Individual Progresses Through In DBT?
DBT is divided into 4 stages of treatment.. The therapist helps the individual progress through these stages to reach their personal mental health goals and achieve their life worth living.
Stage 1
Behavior is at-risk and is experienced as out-of-control. The at-risk behaviors may jeapardize staying alive or are harmful to body and health.
Stage 2
Behavior is under better control but one still lives a life of quiet desperation and may feel a lack of control, due to past traumas or invalidation. One is working toward a life worth living, tolerating full emotional experiencing. PTSD can now be treated.
Stage 3
One can now learn to define one’s goals, build self-respect, and find peace and happiness. In this stage one learns to experience ordinary unhappiness without feeling despair.
Stage 4
In this stage, one finds fulfillment and a sense of ongoing spiritual connectedness with a greater whole. What was experienced as incompleteness is now an ongoing capacity to experience true joy and meaning in everyday life.
What Are The Target Symptoms Of Treatment? In What Order Does The DBT Therapist Prioritize Them?
Life-Threatening Behaviors: At-risk behaviors that could lead potentially lead to client’s death; behaviors of self-harm to body or health. This includes all forms of suicide, both suicidal and non-suicidal self-injury, suicidal ideation, bulimia, anorexia, and any other behaviors engaged in for the purpose of causing harm to body or health.
Therapy-Interfering Behaviors: Behaviors that interfere with the client receiving effective treatment. These behaviors can be on the part of the therapist or client, such as coming late to sessions, canceling appointments, and being non-collaborative in working toward treatment goals.
Quality-of- Life Behaviors: Behaviors that interfere with a reasonable quality of life, mental health issues dysregulation with sex or substance abuse, relationships, or financial issues
Skills Acquisition: Clients learn new skillful behaviors and help them to achieve other important life goals