My Self Help Book

Entry 2: DBT

For those who do not know what DBT is, it stands for Dialectical Behavioral Therapy. To give some background, it is a type of cognitive therapy founded in the 1980s by a woman named Marsha Linehan. It was created to treat people with borderline personality disorder but soon started to spread. Now it is use to treat all different kinds of disorders. To break it down even further, this type of therapy is helping people managing their intense feelings but giving them healthy coping skills.

There are four main components or modules associated with DBT

Mindfulness

Interpersonal Effectiveness

Distress Tolerance

Emotion Regulation

Mindfulness is the core of DBT and quite frankly the hardest one to master. Mindfulness breaks down our mind into three states: emotional, reasonable, and wise. We are always striving to be in wise mind but it does take practice. We naturally tend to lean towards being in emotional or reasonable but together it forms our wise mind. There are also "what" and "how" skills. Observe, describe, and participate are our what skills. Don't judge, stay focused, and do what works is our how skills.

Interpersonal Effectiveness focuses on relationships and how you interact with others. This module pertains to asking for what you need, how to assert yourself, and learning how to cope with interpersonal conflict. It mainly focuses on changing relationships into what you want them to be. Some skills taught are DEAR MAN and GIVE.

Distress tolerance is to tolerate stress. These skills are derived from mindfulness skills. It has to do with accepting your current state in a nonjudgmental way. Remember accepting does not mean approval. These skills help with surviving crisis. Skills that are taught are: self soothe, ACCEPTS, pros and cons.

Emotion regulation helps with regulating strong and intense emotions. Learning to label emotions and identifying obstacles will be things you would learn in this module. You also have to notice your vulnerabilities and take opposite action.

Phew I know that was a lot to take in but it is necessary for you to know what I will be referring to throughout this story. You might think how do I know all this? Well I can tell you I am no genius but I have attended multiple 6 month classes on this topic. Now that we got that out of the way let's jump in.