Dialectical Behavior Therapy

How can Dialectical Behavior Therapy help me?

Have you been in counseling before but felt you were missing the “how-to’s”?
Were you tired of just talking about how you feel and what you think but wanted to know what exactly you could do to feel better?
Maybe this is your first time trying counseling & you want to learn skills to help you cope better & not just talk about it?

Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) is a well-researched and comprehensive counseling treatment approach based heavily on skills you learn to help you cope better so you can feel better. These are very simple skills to learn & have helped millions of people decrease anxiety, stress, improve depression, among other issues.

How is Dialectical Behavior Therapy different than other therapies?

DBT works by teaching you actual skills and tools you can learn & use for the rest of your life that we can incorporate as part of the counseling process to help you feel a lot better. It teaches you skills you can use to not only recognize what is triggering these feelings but how to better cope with them and minimize them quite effectively. DBT, for just one example, can teach assertiveness skills to enable you to more effectively ask for what you want from others and saying no to things you don't want in a comfortable, easy manner.

It’s often referred to as a “toolbox”. The same way that sometimes you need a hammer, and other times a wrench, by learning DBT you’ll have the right “tool” to effectively and calmly handle what life brings your way.

Please note: We do not offer a structured, adherent DBT program or counseling but rather weave this modality in with other modalities such as CBT, psychodynamic, mindfulness-based CBT as well as others. If you are looking for a more traditional approach to DBT, please refer to psychologytoday.com for services in your area.

What is Dialectical Behavior Therapy good for?

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Developed by Marsha Linehan, Ph.D. at the University of Washington in the early 1990's, DBT was originally designed as an innovative and integrative counseling treatment for a select group of clients. Because of its success in treating this population, DBT has gained in popularity and has been shown to be highly-effective, easy-to-learn, and very helpful for a broad range of issues including PTSD, anxiety and depression. We have found in our personal counseling practice it to be very helpful for just about everyone. And, that is why we took the time to fully learn, understand and integrate it into our practice including obtaining full certification.

We know these skills well. We didn’t just sit in the training and learn them - we actually have practiced them ourselves so we understand exactly how they work, how to tweak them for our clients, & just how effective they are.

How do we use Dialectical Behavior Therapy with our clients?

In its truest form, DBT separates skills training from individual counseling, requiring clients to attend weekly skills training groups in addition to being in ongoing and weekly counseling.

We have a modified powerful therapeutic approach.

One of the key assumptions of DBT is that while we may not have caused all of our problems, we are the only ones capable and responsible for fixing them.
Kevin and Beth incorporate DBT skills within the individual counseling session teaching you the skills that will be of most benefit for you.

These are the basic skills modules taught with the Dialectical Behavior Therapy model. We work with you to find what particular skills will work best for your own unique individual needs.

Core Mindfulness - being present and non-judgmentally aware in the moment

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This is probably the skill we teach our clients the most. So much research has now shown that Mindfulness, which can or cannot involve meditation because it is so much more than that, leads to improvement on every level for most people

Mindfulness is not about meditating but learning to build your awareness & acceptance of the present moment. It sounds simple enough in concept, but most of the time we are not mindful - we are not present in the moment - and in fact, spend the most of our time living truly unaware of this very present moment.

When our minds are racing, we aren’t being mindful. When we are trying to figure things out for our future, we aren’t being mindful. When we are thinking about the past, or worrying about the future, we aren’t being mindful.

Anxiety is known as a lack of mindfulness because it is mostly future-oriented.It’s often accompanied with “What if” questions like: “What if this happens…”. Depression, on the other hand, is often past-oriented - regrets, resentments, past abuses - and so, it is also lacking mindfulness.

What if you could stay in this one present moment, learning to fully accept it, without the anxiety, stress, & depression?
What would your life feel like?
What difference could that make for you to let go of worry and sorrow?

2. Distress Tolerance - managing difficult feelings without acting impulsively

With Distress Tolerance skills we focus on managing uncomfortable feelings, emotions & thoughts. There are specific things we can do (most of them not taking much time at all to practice) to feel better much more quickly.

You may be familiar with the saying that fear leads to more fear. By practicing distress tolerance, we can learn how to lean into fear instead of trying to escape it - and by doing so, greatly reducing the impact of the fear itself.

It sounds counter-intuitive. But, it’s powerful!

3. Emotion Regulation - learning to skillfully use or change emotions

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Do you ever feel your emotions get the “better of you”?

Emotional regulation is just as it sounds. We can learn to use powerful emotions to work for us rather than against us. Or, we may want or need to change how we’re feeling. And that is possible! Learning these skills can teach you how.

Have you ever been so angry you just don’t know what to do with all the feelings?
Have you every been so sad you can barely find the motivation to do much of anything?
Or, have you ever felt so annoyed you snap at people?

We’ve all been there. But, it doesn’t have to be that way. These are skills that can benefit us all.

4. Interpersonal Effectiveness –relating skillfully with others

Not only do interpersonal effectiveness skills teach us how to be more assertive & clear in our communications - these skills also can help us preserve our sense of self, our self-esteem and honor the other person we’re communicating with.

Maybe you have trouble explaining how you feel?

Or, maybe you find yourself always apologizing for you how feel or what you want?

These skills can help you with all of these communication issues so you can be assertive while honoring yourself & others.

You don’t need to come see us specifically for DBT. We can weave these into our other counseling sessions - but if you want a solely skills-based approach, we can offer that too!

Does this involve homework?

We wish we could say that somehow you can learn these skills in one session. As with all learning, it doesn’t work like that. BUT, with just 5-15 minutes a day, you can learn them & learn them quickly. Once you get started, you’ll be surprised how quickly the others are even easier to learn.

Not to use the riding the bike example, but yes, we had to practice that too. The good news is there aren’t any neighborhood garbage cans to knock over and pick up as you go!

But, I’ve tried all sorts of things, how do I know this will work?

Honestly, it depends what sorts of things? Just like mindfulness, there’s a lot of misconceptions and misinterpretation of what that is out there. These exercises & skills are applicable to everyday life. You do them while you’re doig other things. That’s why they’re so effective.