On The Coast Families June/July 2022 Winter edition

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10 ways dialectical behavioural therapy can change your life BY ALEXANDRA WILSON (AMHSW; CSW; MAASW; BSW USYD)

Dialectical Behavioural Therapy (DBT) is an evidence– based therapy that’s been shown to provide excellent outcomes for lots of mental health concerns. Originally developed for the treatment of borderline personality disorder, DBT now has evidence that shows it’s effective for any condition that results in difficulty regulating emotions and behaviours. It’s important when you’re looking for mental health treatment, that you find a treatment that is designed to treat your particular issues. At our practice (Mindful Recovery Services), we see many teenagers and young adults for DBT treatment. Common issues that our young people experience include: Intense emotions that feel out of control Self harm Disordered eating Drug and alcohol abuse Problems making and maintaining relationships Difficulties with self image and self esteem. HERE ARE 10 WAYS DBT COULD BENEFIT YOU 1. Emotion regulation skills Traditional cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) is one of the most common therapies practiced, and chances are if you’ve had therapy before, you’ve done some CBT. CBT can be very effective for the treatment of anxiety and some other mental health conditions, however, for some people, the focus on thoughts and perceptions only goes so far. Some people can get very skilful at identifying problematic thoughts and beliefs, but it still doesn’t change how they feel. DBT goes a few steps further than traditional CBT, in that emotion regulation skills are at the core of the therapy. It still covers traditional CBT

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concepts, such as the role of thoughts and how they interact with emotions– but it goes even further. Emotion regulation skills are actually mostly emotion acceptance skills. We try to build our acceptance of emotions, whilst changing our relationship with those emotions– particularly the uncomfortable ones. In DBT we learn to observe and describe our emotions– without judgement. This allows us to choose how we want to respond, rather than engaging in an automatic reaction. 2. Balancing acceptance and change Many western psychological therapies focus heavily on change. In other words, we identify some problem in our lives, and try to change it or ourselves to feel better. In DBT, we recognise that there are some things that need to change. It may be that we need to learn new skills to stop problem behaviours, and create the quality of life that we want. However, if we only focus on change we are likely to encounter a problem... there are some things in life we can’t change (a lot actually)! Acceptance skills are a core part of DBT, and we recognise that in some areas we need to push for change

but in other areas we need to try to accept it. Acceptance skills are widely acknowledged in eastern philosophies as the key to emotional growth and inner peace. 3. Practical skills DBT is a skills based therapy, which means we acknowledge that to change and accept more in our lives, we need to learn and practice new skills. Nothing changes if we don’t change our actions! DBT teaches specific skills in how to get through times of very high distress. We often need to learn what to do to help our body chemistry first, in order to be able to get through times of very high distress. It’s well known that our brains function differently when we are highly distressed, so we have to address the brain issue at a body level, then we can apply more sophisticated psychological skills as we start to calm down. But if we don’t learn how to change our body chemistry, we will continue to struggle to get through high distress. 4. Strong therapeutic relationship Research shows conclusively that the best predictor of improvement through therapy is a good relationship with your therapist. DBT recognises the importance


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