How Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) Works
Dialectical behavior therapy can be one of the most successful treatment modalities for people struggling with a range of mental health conditions.
Emotional vulnerability can lead people to feel threatened in non-threatening social situations. In dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), the patient and therapist engage in dialogue that builds mindfulness, distress tolerance, emotion regulation, and interpersonal skills. Dialectical behavior therapy incorporates strategies such as self-monitoring, individual and group therapy, skills training, and impulse control to help clients manage their emotions and behaviors. This treatment modality is effective in treating a range of psychological concerns that relate to substance use disorder.
When it comes to treating addiction, people greatly benefit from access to effective addiction therapy programs that help them change self-destructive habits. That’s where a dialectical behavior therapy program in Montana can help.
With this therapy, patients can learn to cope with stress healthily while living in the moment. The goals of DBT include the following:
- Targeting the reduction of life-threatening behavior
- Increasing effective emotional experiencing
- Improving interpersonal communication skills
- Building impulse control and self-regulation
- Distinguishing between actual VS. perceived stress
What is Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT)?
Dialectical behavior therapy is a type of cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) designed to motivate people to change destructive behaviors and regulate their emotions. Unlike other forms of CBT, though, it focuses more heavily on emotional and social aspects.
How DBT Therapy Works
Dialectical behavior therapy can be one of the most successful treatment modalities for people struggling with a range of mental health conditions. It helps people learn to manage and regulate emotions, interact with others, and control impulses. In addition, participating in dialectical behavior therapy may help improve relationships and manage emotions more effectively.
Through DBT, you and your therapist will explore the following skills:
- Mindfulness
Here, your daughter will learn to be mindful of her feelings and thoughts and recognize thought patterns, feelings, and behaviors. By identifying them, she will be more in control of how she thinks and reacts to what’s happening around her, realizing what she’s thinking, why, and how to overcome these challenges. - Distress tolerance
The key here is to learn how to recognize the reality of a situation. When one tries to avoid this, it often leads to suffering. However, your daughter can learn to accept even painful previous events, overcoming the emotional connection they have. - Interpersonal effectiveness skills
These skills teach patients how to be more objective in some situations. In addition, your daughter will gain strategies for managing relationships that may bring unfavorable feelings or make her feel more vulnerable. - Emotion regulation
In this component, she will learn how to regulate her emotions using various skills. This allows her to identify and label her emotions, which can help reduce her vulnerability to them and decrease her emotional suffering. Different types of thinking cause different types of concerns. In dialectical behavior therapy, the patient and therapist work on distinguishing between and building several elements of the psyche.
Strategies in DBT
Our Dialectical Behavior therapy program in Montana incorporates four main strategies to help people change negative behaviors.
The first is mindfulness training. This helps patients focus on their present selves and live in the moment. The objective is to offer trauma-informed care and avoid reliving past mistakes.
Improving distress tolerance is the second strategy of dialectical behavior therapy. As the name suggests, it teaches people to tolerate stress during a crisis. Learning distress tolerance allows patients to accept current situations and themselves.
Four DBT techniques that achieve distress tolerance include:
- Weighing the pros and cons
- Improving movement
- Soothing one’s self
- Distracting one’s self
The third strategy of dialectical behavioral therapy involves practicing interpersonal effectiveness. It teaches people how to be assertive in relationships while keeping the relationships healthy and positive. For example, people learn to express their needs while saying “no.”
The last strategy that a dialectical behavior therapy program teaches is emotion regulation. It involves recognizing negative emotions and learning how to cope with them. For example, it can help people realize they’re angry and how to deal with anger. In the end, it limits their emotional vulnerability while increasing positive emotions.
How Does DBT Help Addiction?
Dialectical behavior therapy helps people who struggle with addiction in two ways.
First, it helps them eliminate self-destructive behaviors. Substance abuse and eating disorders are two of the most common behavioral health disorders. Getting these under control is an integral part of any addiction treatment program.
Secondly, dialectical behavior therapy helps people deal with certain mental health disorders. Doing so is essential because mental conditions are often the underlying cause of addiction. To prevent relapse after treatment, they have to address this cause and avoid triggers. Post-traumatic stress disorder and borderline personality disorder are examples of conditions that DBT can treat by helping patients improve in the following areas:
- Mindfulness
- Distress tolerances
- Emotion regulation
- Interpersonal skill
This type of talk therapy helps many people to overcome the challenges they are facing. Each person’s outcome is different. However, most people find that this program can help you achieve profound life improvements. It may help you to:
- Improve self-respect
- Learn how to improve behavioral skills to make better decisions
- Reduce suicidal or harmful behaviors
- Improve goal setting
- Learn how to manage extreme mood changes more effectively
- Evidence-based, peer-reviewed addiction treatment
By using evidence-based treatment methods such as cognitive-behavioral therapy, medication-assisted treatment, mindfulness and meditation, and dialectical behavior therapy, we equip patients with the essential tools for long-term addiction recovery. Years of scientific research have validated these methods’ effectiveness.
Dialectical behavior therapy, in particular, emphasizes the importance of the client-therapist relationship to foster growth and healing. Through this therapy, clients learn new communication skills, coping strategies, and ways to regulate their emotions, all of which help build positive relationships and reduce self-harm.
