Dialectical Behavior Therapy: Benefits, Techniques & How It Works

The therapy’s focus on both acceptance and change helps clients build a life worth living while addressing the underlying issues that contribute to their emotional distress. For those facing anxiety, depression, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), borderline personality disorder, or other emotional challenges, dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) offers more than just support. It provides practical tools for regaining stability and building a more fulfilling life. With structured guidance and consistent skill-building, DBT can support emotional balance, improve relationships, and increase a sense of control over thoughts and behaviors. Depression is a mood disorder characterized by persistent sadness, loss of interest in activities, fatigue, and suicidal ideation.

• Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) is a form of psychotherapy (“talk therapy”) used to help manage extreme emotions, improve relationships, and increase tolerance to distress.
• You’ll meet with others to learn new skills, practice them in a supportive environment, and discuss how they apply to your daily life.
• If a family member struggles with very strong emotions, Dr. Aguirre offers this mini-DBT lesson about validation.
• It can help to alleviate the symptoms of many mental illnesses, including mood disorders such as depression, anxiety, and borderline personality disorder.
• You learn how to better manage intense emotions, cope with challenging situations, practice mindfulness, and improve your relationships, according to Harvard Health Publishing.

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DBT is a structured, skills based therapy that helps you manage intense emotions and cope with challenging situations. The benefits of Dialectical Behavior Therapy are improved emotional regulation, reduced self-destructive behaviors, and enhanced interpersonal relationships. As an evidence-based therapy, DBT helps individuals manage negative thoughts, develop distress tolerance, and build dialectical behavioral therapy healthier coping mechanisms for long-term mental well-being.

Core mindfulness

While psychodynamic therapy focuses on exploring past experiences, DBT takes a structured and skills-based approach, aiming to modify immediate responses to distress. Dialectical Behavior Therapy isn’t a quick fix, but it’s a powerful one. It focuses on four key areas and uses a structured approach to teach you practical skills to help you manage emotions, navigate relationships, and handle stress in healthier ways. While it shares some similarities with CBT, DBT focuses on the balance between acceptance and change. You’ll meet with a therapist for one-on-one sessions, focusing on your personal goals and challenges. Your therapist will help you track behaviors and emotions (often using a diary card), problem-solve tricky situations, and build on your skills each week.

DBT group training

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. Because DBT is a demanding therapy to deliver even for experienced therapists, therapists typically work in consultation with a treatment team and regularly meet with a team. The team’s recommendations are often applied in individual therapy sessions. Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is a type of talk therapy that helps people understand how thoughts affect emotions and behaviors. When you’re struggling with your mental health, addiction, or both (in the case of co-occurring disorders), partnering with a professional treatment center is critical.

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Research has found that beyond BPD, dialectical behavior therapy has been shown to help reduce suicidal behavior in adults. Studies show DBT also reduces self-harming behavior and suicide attempts in teens. As a team, you and your therapist will identify behaviors you’d like to decrease along with behaviors you’d like to increase. For example, someone might use DBT to address behaviors related to alcohol use or binge eating disorder. This is why therapists help people hone in on what’s important to them.

Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT): Benefits, Techniques & How It Works

If you’re ready to overcome your struggles, become a better version of yourself, and learn valuable life skills along the way, contact our team now. Often run like a class, dialectical behavior therapy groups focus on teaching you (as well as others) behavioral skills that enhance your capabilities in everyday life. A therapist will lead the class, guiding you through exercises and lessons.

• (See if you can find your perfect fit here!) While some therapists may incorporate DBT skills into their therapy with clients, a formal DBT treatment program is official and structured.
• Working with a trained DBT therapist can help you learn new coping skills and effective strategies for achieving positive change.
• This means you can call your therapist at certain times for support between sessions.
• DBT is a form of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) initially used for the treatment of borderline personality disorder (BPD).
• What emerged was a blend of cognitive-behavioral strategies (changing how you think and behave) with mindfulness and acceptance techniques rooted in Eastern philosophies.

Many psychiatric hospitals, community mental health centers, and private drug addiction therapy practices also offer DBT-trained clinicians. Consulting with a primary care physician or psychiatrist also help in obtaining referrals to licensed DBT practitioners. Once crisis behaviors are under control, clients can begin to explore deeper emotional wounds, often related to trauma or long-standing invalidation.