Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) | Behavioral Therapy & DBT Group Therapy
Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) is a specialized cognitive-behavioral therapy that combines individual therapy with skills group training sessions to help people manage emotions and navigate life’s difficulties.
Psychological disorders in which people suffer from high levels of emotional vulnerability, leading to them seeking DBT treatment include:
DBT treatment includes clear, easy-to-remember DBT skills that you’ll learn in weekly skills group therapy sessions. Our therapists will also relate to you in an accepting, validating manner and help you to maintain motivation to move forward.
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Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) was developed on Long Island, New York in the 1980s by Dr. Marsha Linehan. Dr Linehan was doing graduate work at Stony Brook, when she realized that a strictly behavioral approach to therapy did not work with certain clients who feared and struggled with change. But when she switched to a purely acceptance-based approach, she realized that this did not work either because clients were unhappy and needed to take steps towards improving their lives.
Dr. Lineman decided to create a behavioral therapy that drew from several different schools of thought including cognitive behavioral therapy, which emphasizes changing thoughts and behaviors, and Eastern meditation practices, which emphasizes a mindful, acceptance-based approach. Delicately balancing this dialectic of acceptance and change became the basis of Dialectical Behavior Therapy.
So What is DBT Therapy? DBT is often used to treat borderline personality disorder and the theory which forms the basis of this DBT treatment states that many of the problems we experience stem from our emotional vulnerability and difficulty in regulating our intense emotional responses. If your biological makeup leads you to struggle with your emotions, you can develop difficulties in many areas of your life. Some of these difficulties may be manifested in behaviors such as suicide attempts, acting impulsively, addictions, self-harm such as cutting and eating disorders. Sometimes you struggle with your thoughts, for example, suicidal thoughts, cognitive distortions and confusion. You may also find yourself struggling with feelings of emptiness or self-hatred or you may have difficulties in your relationships, such as being involved in enmeshed, co-dependent, abusive or avoidance relationships, or having fears of abandonment. These problems can also be made worse when your emotions are invalidated, discounted, shamed, or criticized by others.
There are different components of DBT Skills including: individual therapy sessions, skills group training sessions and between-session phone coaching.
Weekly Individual DBT Sessions
In Individual DBT treatment, you will work toward establishing a committed, collaborative working relationship with your mental health specialist/ therapist. You will have opportunities to discuss things such as struggles you have with your mood, problematic behaviors and thinking patterns, interpersonal issues, the impact of traumatic events from your past and your goals for the future.
You will be encouraged to fill out a weekly “Diary Card,” which is an easy-to-use self-monitoring chart on which you will take note of the urges, behaviors, emotions, and skills that are part of your life each day. These are discussed in sessions with your therapist so you can gain a better understanding of them, identify your patterns, and develop more effective ways of increasing skillful behaviors and decreasing unskillful ones. Your individual therapist will also work with you to anticipate and deal with times when you may struggle in motivating yourself to make important changes in your life.
Weekly DBT Skills Training
Skills groups usually start out with a mindfulness practice, followed by a review of the skills homework from the previous week, and discussion of a new skill that can be tried out over the course of the following week. Members also get the benefit of having a positive structured peer experience in which they can feel less alone with their problems, get encouragement and support, and receive feedback from others about how to apply skills to their own life stressors.
Members are encouraged to learn and master the five DBT skills modules outlined below: core mindfulness skills, distress tolerance skills, emotion regulation skills, interpersonal effectiveness skills, and middle path skills.
