Dialectical Behavior Therapy
Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) offers individuals comprehensive skills to manage painful memories and emotions and decrease conflicts in their relationships. This modality focuses on 4 specific areas of therapeutic skills:
- Mindfulness – Helps individuals be present in the current moment.
- Distress tolerance – Distress tolerance is geared toward increasing a person’s tolerance of negative emotions instead of avoiding the difficult feelings.
- Emotion regulation – Offers strategies to manage intense emotions that are the root cause of problems in a person’s life.
- Interpersonal effectiveness – These techniques allow an individual to communicate with others in a confident, assertive way that maintains self-respect and strengthens relationships.
How Does it Work Exactly?
Many of us live our daily lives with a constant stream of uncontrollable negative emotions. These emotions affect how we feel about ourselves and how we interact with other people, including friends, romantic partners, and family members.
DBT essentially works with individuals to help them find ways to manage their negative emotions so they can feel balanced, in control, and able to interact respectfully and successfully. The message at the heart of DBT is acceptance and change.
When is DBT Used and What Can You Expect?
While dialectical behavioral therapy was initially developed to treat those with borderline personality disorder, research has since shown that DBT can successfully treat people with depression, bipolar disorder, PTSD, eating disorders and substance abuse.
DBT treatment usually consists of a combination of DBT skills groups and individual therapy sessions. The individual therapy sessions allow you to have one-on-one contact with a trained therapist who will help you apply DBT skills to your daily life, address any obstacle that may arise, and keep you motivated. The DBT skills group interactions will help you practice skills with others and offer mutual support.
At Bradenton Counseling Center, we have several therapists that utilize DBT as a means of treatment. Contact us today to set your appointment.