We all experience moments of doubt, worry, disappointment, grief, and low self-esteem. While many of us may feel that these feelings are not of concern, learning tools to cope with these feelings is always beneficial. Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) is a form of cognitive-behavioral treatment often used for a variety of mental health illnesses, but virtually anyone can gain many wonderful tools developed from using this therapy. DBT provides skills for mindfulness, emotion regulation, distress tolerance, and interpersonal effectiveness.
There are several main functions of DBT that serve to benefit anyone:
- Enhance our capabilities – this is the skills-based component, and is typically learned in groups. The four main skills focused on are:
- Mindfulness – we learn skills to practice being fully aware in the present moment
- Distress tolerance – we learn how to tolerate pain in distressing situations, not to change it
- Interpersonal relationships – we learn how to ask for what we want, as well as how to say “no” while maintaining our self-respect and relationships with others
- Emotion regulation – we learn how to change emotions we want to change
- Enhance our motivation – with one-on-one therapy, we work through our challenges and apply the skills that we have learned to overcome them.
- Structure – a therapist then teaches us case management and how to manage ourselves. We learn about our physical and social environment and how to make decisions that will benefit our health and well-being the most.
- Support – a network of health care professionals help one another to ensure that we get the best treatment possible.
There is never any harm with learning or strengthening our current coping skills. We often experience demanding situations, and we may not realize the impact that those stressful events have on our health. By partaking in DBT, we can learn ways to more effectively manage our mental health and make decisions that are best for our happiness. We can more accurately define what self-respect means for us, and can draw a clearer picture of who we are and what we need from life to make it a meaningful one. We can learn from those around us and discover areas of ourselves that we hadn’t paid much attention to before.
If you feel that this may be an excellent form of therapy for you, speak with your therapist today to learn more about the benefits that this treatment plan can offer.
Residential treatment programs give you the time you need to focus on healing. Avalon Malibu is one of California’s only certified primary mental health treatment facility providing trusted programs with trusted results. For a confidential assessment and more information, call us today: 888-958-7511
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