DIALECTICAL BEHAVIOR THERAPY
BY: T. Franklin Murphy | October 25, 2021 (modified February 5, 2023)
Dialectical Behavior Therapy:Life with all it's wondrous joys also brings sorrow. Our wellness is dependent on healthy processing of dialectic experiences. Life pulls in many direction, lifting with joys while challenging with disappointments and fears. We exist in a dialectical tension caused by opposing forces. Our managing of the complexity determines our experience of wellness.
"The ability to appreciate paradox and to think dialectically" is a helpful skill to manage the diversity of life experiences and a necessary ingredient to healing from trauma (Tedeschi, et al. 2018). Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) is designed to improve emotional regulation and enhance resilience to help clients better tolerate stress. DBT achieves these objectives through teaching emotional regulation and interpersonal skills that navigate the opposing forces encountered in living. The underlying belief is that is people can manage their emotions they can effectively direct their own lives. Dialectical behavior therapy has strong empirical support on its effectiveness for treating many conditions. Therapists have used DBT to treat clients suffering with depression, drug and alcohol abuse problems, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), traumatic brain injuries (TBI), binge-eating disorder, and mood disorders. Research also suggests that DBT might help patients with symptoms and behaviors associated with spectrum mood disorders, including self-injury. How Does Dialectical Behavior Therapy differ from Cognitive Behavioral Therapy?Sheri van Dijk explains:
As with cognitive behavioral therapy, DBT skills stem from the basic premise that our emotions, thoughts, and behaviors are all interconnected, but Linehan added the concepts of mindfulness and acceptance to this idea. Mindfulness is about living in the present moment with awareness and with acceptance; what this means in terms of emotion dysregulation is that you learn to become aware of your personal experience, including your emotions, thoughts, and behaviors, giving you the opportunity to make changes in any of these areas. Also key to DBT is the idea of acceptance, for example, learning to accept or acknowledge your emotions rather than trying to push them away or ignore them (2012, p. 5). DBT relies on much of the same foundational concepts as cognitive behavioral therapy. However, DBT has built in mindfulness, emotional regulation, distress tolerance, and interpersonal skills as key elements to develop in therapy.
Key Definition:Dialectical Behavior Therapy is a type of psychotherapy that teaches skills and strategies to clients so they can manage their emotions, tolerate stress, and effectively build relationships. By mastering these skills, DBT practitioners theorize that clients will then be able to effectively direct their own lives.
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