By Carrissa Delaney, MA, BSL, LPC
Do you find yourself with big emotions, and not exactly knowing how to navigate these feelings? Or maybe you’re wearing thin from stress, and you’re not getting along with your friends, family, and colleagues.
If this is the case for you, then Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) might be the evidence-based psychotherapy treatment for you.
The benefits include:
- Developing self-acceptance and mindfulness
- Regulating emotions
- Communicating effectively that aligns with your values
- Strengthening your relationships
- Expanding your thought process beyond black-and-white thinking
- Increasing overall mental health and well-being
Before we dive deeper into how DBT enhances your life skills, I (Carrissa Delaney) personally started using DBT in my therapy sessions a couple of years ago after noticing that many of the strategies used specifically in DBT were working effectively for my clients.
I’ve also been a clinical therapist for close to four years now, with therapy licenses in behavioral analytics in Pennsylvania and Delaware.
In this blog post, I’ll explain a bit of the history behind Dialectical Behavior Therapy, and then jump into the powerful skills you gain from DBT sessions.
A Bit of Background on Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)
Therapists started using DBT around the late 1980s when Dr. Marsha Linehan, researcher at the University of Washington, came up with DBT and formally organized the four skill modules (core mindfulness, distress tolerance, emotional regulation, and interpersonal effectiveness).
She designed the modules this way because Dr. Linehan was specifically working with patients who were chronically suicidal, had very severe behaviors, while also working with borderline personality patients.
Dr. Linehan herself has struggled with borderline personality disorder, making her work both a professional and personal endeavor.
What’s more, Dr. Linehan really wanted to have a style of therapy that would help prevent burnout for therapists as well as provide helpful and effective strategies for their clients struggling with these conditions.
Interestingly enough since the use of DBT in the 1980s, there hasn’t been a ton of empirical research moving forward. Despite the limited research, in the late 1990s, therapists decided to use it on other types of diagnoses.
Their findings were positive, powerful and effective for clients struggling with eating disorders, depression, severe PTSD, and other types of diagnoses that also had disorders along with it.
The Unique Process of DBT
Now that you’ve got a bit of the history under your belt, I’m going to give you a basis of Dialectical Behavior Therapy. DBT is a combined form of Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT) as well as Buddhist practices for mindfulness and acceptance strategies.
The design is uniquely intertwined as it helps you to develop acceptance as well as mindfulness. In other words, you can better understand yourself in a situation.
What makes DBT so unique is that it’s designed to be a treatment process, but it can be so different for every single patient on their journey because of how the steps go. Since every person is unique, DBT offers a highly personalized experience, giving you your own motivation and willingness throughout the treatment.
Another part of the DBT process is expanding on your thought process where two, three, or four truths can co-exist. It really helps my clients to change their black and white thinking, which is where they can be on one side or the other, and where one is true and the other is wrong.
While going through the DBT process, this expanded thinking gives you the ability to hold truths in a different way, where two things that seem contradictory can both be perceived as likely.
In short, the combination of Cognitive Behavior Therapy with Buddhist practices and expanded thinking skills really makes DBT an incredibly customized type of therapy.
Who Is DBT Tailored For?
Since DBT was designed for individuals with more chronic suicidal tendencies, severe behaviors, severe depression, PTSD, mood dysregulation, whether bipolar or other personality disorders, you most likely will want to seek out a therapist specializing in DBT if you have those diagnoses.
I’m a little biased because DBT is so uniquely designed to fit individuals and to be unique for every person, that really anyone who is coping with maladaptive behaviors that’s due to emotional dysregulation can really benefit from DBT skills.
In terms of age, I’ve also seen DBT used from adults to adolescents, even young kids.
Currently, the research that’s coming out says that a lot of young kids and adolescents, especially ones who are having difficulty with their emotions, such as identifying them and finding effective coping strategies, benefit from a modified version of DBT.
Essential Life Skills You Learn From DBT
Personally, I use the skills often because it’s so ingrained in my memory from doing relationship work here at Chester County Well-Being, but also because I found it effective in my own personal life as well.
To understand the span of skills through DBT, I’ll talk about the four different modules related to the DBT therapy approach: Mindfulness, Distress Tolerance, Emotional Regulation, and Interpersonal Relationships.
Module #1: Mindfulness
First, mindfulness works on acceptance and willingness from my clients to invest in their own therapy. That’s a really huge piece of it.
Module #2: Distress Tolerance
The second module is distress tolerance which I describe to my clients as our “oh no” or “don’t give in” kind of strategies that help prevent us from doing an urge behavior. These strategies prevent us from taking action that we know isn’t effective and is unhelpful.
Distress tolerance gives us a distraction, in a way, to help us get off of that emotional wave and help us get through those sensations that we feel in our body.
Module #3: Emotional Regulation
Third is emotional regulation which teaches about emotion identification which incorporates some of the CBT model. The combination of DBT and CBT models in this case help you identify a behavior that is not validating what you need in your life.
A key piece of DBT helps validate you, your environment, the future that you want, and the values that you want for your future.
Module #4: Interpersonal Relationships
Lastly, interpersonal relationships is the final module in the DBT process. When Dr. Lenhine first created this program, she noticed that people with bipolar and borderline personality disorder had a really difficult time with their relationships.
She designed this specific part of the program to help people be effective in their communication by communicating their needs in an assertive way with others so that it didn’t contradict what they valued or what they wanted out of their life.
How DBT Leads to Lasting Benefits
One of the things I’ll say is how DBT has really enhanced my own cognitive abilities. This goes for all our clients’ lives that use skills learned from DBT here at Chester County Well-Being. It helps their behavioral capabilities because of the strong ownership developed through the modules. In essence, it improves their motivation because it’s so unique to every single person.
One of the many benefits of DBT is that you find your own drive.
The program itself ensures that you develop an environment that’s going to validate what you want for the future which is yet another way it enhances your overall mental health and well-being.
The Positive Outcomes
When looking at the outcomes I’ve seen with my clients, plus through conclusive data from empirical research, we’ve seen such a high reduction for ineffective behaviors that would have initially created more struggles for these clients.
One of the biggest keys for our clients is recognizing and noticing that some behaviors aren’t serving them.
Through mindfulness, awareness, and acceptance strategies, they benefit from higher self-awareness through the DBT approach.
Is DBT a Good Fit For You?
Pursuing therapy is an incredibly brave step for many people, and seeking a good fit therapist with the appropriate therapy approach for you can feel overwhelming. So, how do you know if DBT is a good fit for you?
If you can narrow down some good-fit clinicians who are well-versed in different therapy styles, then they can decide what’s best for you after intake, evaluation, and sometimes diagnostic testing for further insights.
After evaluating your needs, your therapist would then discuss the findings and possible steps forward with you. This might be individual treatment with that therapist, or sometimes therapists may transfer out because they don’t have the skills that fit your needs, or they want to refer you to a specific program.
You may want to look for clinics that provide group and individual therapy specifically designed for DBT, so you know they will meet your needs.
Some Last Thoughts on DBT
The last thing that I’d like to say is that when looking across the age spans, DBT can be utilized in all age groups.
We’ve seen the effectiveness with a lot of disruptive behaviors, even for adolescents and young children, and directly speaks to the effectiveness of the DBT model.
Looking forward, there’s still a lot of research that needs to be done, but as you know, the DBT approach continues to work and shows effectiveness in cases reducing symptoms for clients, such as less hospital stays. Such evidence shows that the design has helped so many lives over the last three or four decades.
Please feel free to contact us if you’re wondering if DBT is going to be a good fit for you.
You can also check out our other blog post So, How Exactly Does Therapy Work? A Simple Guide to Empower Your Path to Well-Being that explains what to expect from the first inquiry call to the first session.
Contact Us
Ready to take the next step for your well-being? Chester County Well-Being (CCWB) provides a range of mental health services to ensure we meet our community’s needs. We serve individuals, couples, and families in the Chester County area. Reach out to us here.
Our specializations include:
- Therapy for Depression and Anxiety
- Couples Counseling
- Family Counseling
- Parenting Support
- Grief Counseling
- Work and Career issues
- Stress Management
- Addiction & Recovery
- Conflict Resolution
Teletherapy
In addition to in-person services, Dr. Malynn Kuangparichat, owner and psychologist at CCWB, provides high quality and secure telepsychology services in 17 states. All other clinicians offer teletherapy services for the state of PA.
Disclaimer: The contents of this blog does not constitute a clinical relationship or replace the need for professional services.
About the Author
Carrissa Delaney, MA, BSL, LPC earned her MA in Marriage and Family Counseling at Lancaster Bible College Capital Seminary and Graduate School. She has been devoted to serving individuals and families struggling with a wide range of mental health struggles, including depression, addiction, anxiety, maladaptive personality features, parenting children with autism, and familial adjustment to separation and divorce.
A proponent of technical eclecticism as an outpatient therapist, Carrissa specializes in Psychoanalytic, Trauma -Focused, Dialectical Behavior Therapy, and Cognitive Behavior Therapy.
Beginning with identification of strengths and struggles, she focuses on past and present interpersonal relationships (with people and the environment), given the impact of prior learning on present thinking and behaving. In partnership with her clients, symptom reduction is achieved by strengthening self-awareness of cognitive, emotional and interpersonal capabilities in order to function as their best selves.
Besides helping others with their well-being needs, Carrissa loves going on hikes and reading. She likes creating new traditions in her family, and watching her daughter experience new things in this wonderfully simple yet complex world that we live in.