DIALECTICAL BEHAVIOUR THERAPY

Distress Tolerance:

Distress tolerance skills help you accept yourself and your current situation. DBT teaches several techniques for handling a crisis, including:

• Distraction

• Improving the moment

• Self-soothing

• Thinking of the pros and cons of not tolerating distress

Distress tolerance techniques help prepare you for intense emotions and empower you to cope with them with a more positive long-term outlook.

Benefits of DBT:

In DBT, the patient and therapist work to resolve the apparent contradiction between self-acceptance and change to bring about positive changes in the individual in treatment. Part of this process involves offering validation, which helps people become more likely to cooperate and less likely to experience distress at the idea of change.

In practice, the therapist validates that an individual's actions "make sense" within the context of their personal experiences without necessarily agreeing that the actions are the best approach to solving a problem.

Each therapeutic setting has its own structure and goals, but the characteristics of DBT can be found in group skills training, individual psychotherapy, and phone coaching.

 These are the six main points of DBT:

• Acceptance and change: You’ll learn strategies to accept and tolerate your life circumstances, emotions, and yourself. You will also develop skills that can help you make positive changes in your behaviors and interactions with others.

• Behavioral: You'll learn to analyze problems or destructive behavior patterns and replace them with more healthy and effective ones.

• Cognitive: You'll focus on changing thoughts and beliefs that are not effective or helpful.  

• Collaboration: You'll learn to communicate effectively and work together as a team (therapist, group therapist, psychiatrist).

• Skill sets: You’ll learn new skills to enhance your capabilities.

• Support: You'll be encouraged to recognize your positive strengths and attributes and develop and use them.