The Four Modules of DBT!

Hi all! Happy Thursday! Hopefully my last blog post peaked your interest in Dialectical Behavior Therapy. I wanted to dive even deeper into the question 'What is DBT?' to give you an idea of the areas we would focus on in DBT therapy. Marsha Linehan divided DBT into four modules - mindfulness, interpersonal effectiveness, emotional regulation and distress tolerance.

Mindfulness: You may look at the word mindfulness and automatically think 'I don't meditate so no, thank you'. Mindfulness is so much more than meditation! It is the ability to be fully present when you choose to be present. It is the ability to acknowledge our thoughts & emotions without getting caught or stuck in them. Mindfulness takes practice and intention. We can practice mindfulness by putting our phone away at the dinner table to be present with our families. We can practice by sitting outside and noticing the breeze. DBT shows us how to be present when we choose to be and that can be incredibly powerful in combating common mental health struggles.

Interpersonal Effectiveness: When we're talking about emotions and stress, we have to include relationships & communication. None of us exist in a vacuum and other people can be stressful! This section shows us how to be assertive (the balance of passive and aggressive communication), how to keep relationships through effective communication and how to stand up for ourselves. My tagline for this module is that 'it may not be what you came for but it's a fun party favor' that gives you exactly what you need for balanced communication.

Emotional Regulation: This is our main event in DBT - the one you came to see! Oh, emotions, those pesky things. We want to be more in control of our emotions but we have no clue how. The emotional regulation module helps us to label our emotions in the moment, change how we respond to emotions, stay out of emotional mind and get through intense emotions. This module teaches us concrete & useful skills to achieve our goal of regulating our emotions and changing our behaviors connected them.

Distress Tolerance: This module is also a 'fan fave'. Many people come to DBT because they struggle with dealing with stress and that is no surprise because stress is difficult! This module is split into two sections - crisis survival skills and radical acceptance. With crisis survival skills, we focus on calming down through distraction, self-soothing and getting through the moment. Many of our problem behaviors come from not being able to soothe ourselves so this module can make a big difference.

Radical acceptance teaches us how stop rejecting reality and fully accept things that just 'are'. This section again gives us concrete and useful coping skills that you can use in your everyday life to change behaviors associated with managing stress.

Wise Mind Counseling can help you work towards being more mindful, improving communication, managing emotions and better tolerating stress. We can teach you these modules formally or integrate them into our sessions. Please reach out if you'd like more information about getting started!