Live Your Best Life with DBT

DBT for Best Skills, Best Actions….Best Life!

What is DBT?

DBT has a simple mission to help you build a life worth living. A life worth living is defined by you and not anyone else. It is not a protocol to make you more acceptable to others.

The Dialectical part is working with powerful opposing forces which together can lead to major improvement. The practice of acceptance is key, the more we can accept ourselves without berating or judging, the more change is possible.

The Behavior part recognizes that emotions, thoughts and feelings, either positive or negative, influence behaviors and vice versa. This principle is noticed carefully as you move through our program.

Who is DBT for?

DBT is not a suicide prevention program. it is not just for people with borderline personality disorder. While it is great for people in those conditions, it works well with anyone who is experiencing severe symptoms such as guilt, shame, anger, sadness, mood lability, self-harm, suicidal thinking, hopelessness, poor relationships The core concepts and skills of DBT can be a part of any healthy and happy life and may be just right for you.

The key concepts of DBT

• Mindfulness: becoming present in your life less focused on the fear of the future and the regret of the past. To be better able to notice small but immediate pleasures as well as noticing that painful feelings arise and fall away naturally the past we can stop projecting them into our future or connecting them with our past
• Interpersonal Effectiveness Learning how to communicate effectively and without hostility and to begin to recognize that disagreement can be stated strongly and clearly without it being a fight. In this way you can help to see that usually there can be found areas of agreement and mutual respect.
• Distress Tolerance This is the art of acceptance and change DBT develops skills Getting better at recognizing and tolerating distress without an urgency to act on it. Self-soothing, gentle distraction, and cognitive exercises of considering the pros and cons of acting out aggressively to an emotional trigger with such things as a pro might be short lived instant relief and a con could be doing damage to a relationship or bringing on regret and embarrassment later.
• Emotion Regulation  You will learn skills to identify and label emotions and to recognize patterns and triggers rather than becoming overwhelmed with chaotic and extreme negative sensations that seem to come from nowhere. Learning to create space and time to allow yourself to experience and tolerate the emotion without needing to immediately escape it

How Long Does DBT Take to start feeling better

You may begin to feel better right away knowing that you have made a commitment to a clinically proven effective treatment, and you may be able to feel the effects of the skills and insight you are gaining quickly. However, the full benefit takes more time and practice. Certainly within 4-6 months you will likely see significant improvement

Do I need to be in DBT Treatment Forever?

Absolutely not. DBT is a tool to get back to your life, it is not a way of life. You likely will want to take a refresher course of DBT in the future as forgetting and falling back is a part of life, but as said before the single goal is to help you build a life worth living not to be in therapy forever.

How Do I Get Started?

Boston Evening Therapy offers a DBT skills group online. Learn more about this group or sign up at: bostoneveningtherapy.com/dbt