While there are a wide variety of therapy approaches out there, it’s important to think through which therapeutic strategies are right for you and will provide the best support for what you’re going through. DBT treatment, or Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, is one type of psychotherapy that focuses on identifying negative or harmful thoughts, behaviors, or feelings in order to shift them in a positive direction. It can come in the form of individual therapy sessions, group skills therapy, phone coaching, and even through consultation teams.
At Manhattan Wellness, we employ talk therapy with clients as the main approach to utilizing DBT skills. Together, the therapist and the client will work to sit with and address the clients’ feelings, thoughts, fears, and doubts. Clients will then learn to employ practical skills and tools to break the harmful patterns of thoughts and behaviors. Ultimately, the goal is to empower clients to use these skills to help them handle their emotions in an effective way. This could be helpful for anyone looking to navigate difficult relationships, be more mindful about your thought patterns, and overall learn to cultivate more self-love and confidence self-love and confidence.
So, what does this actually look like? DBT treatment has four main pillars it focuses on: mindfulness , distress tolerance, emotional regulation, and interpersonal effectiveness.
The first mode of DBT treatment is mindfulness. This practice is rooted in the ability to notice and redirect negative thoughts, pause when emotions get overwhelming in the moment, and have the power and freedom to choose how we react in the future. Sometimes practicing mindfulness can be as simple as acknowledging an intrusive or unpleasant thought entering our minds, and simply sitting with it instead of reacting in the moment. For example, you may use mindfulness to notice anxieties surrounding productivity that come up while you’re at work. Mindfulness can also look like using coping strategies- such as meditation or journaling- to reset and deliberately process difficult emotions, such as sadness about a breakup. While mindfulness can also be implemented in everyday self-care rituals- like practicing yoga or using music to self soothe- it is also an ongoing practice that needs to be strengthened and exercised.
Everyone experiences stressful situations, and distress tolerance is our ability to proactively manage these overwhelming instances in a way that mitigates heightened emotions and the immediate panic we may feel. Especially if you’re someone who has a high stress job, multiple family responsibilities, or an unpredictable schedule, you likely are faced with distress often. Developing these skills can be crucial to learning how to respond to these feelings of overwhelm and overstimulation. Further, experts note that developing this tolerance requires practice- we can’t learn to overcome life’s difficult moments overnight! This is why ongoing Dialectical Behavioral Therapy-which emphasizes practicing these hard skills- can be essential to building mindfulness and tolerance to stress. If we don’t prioritize these skills, our ability to manage extreme stress can actually decrease and make more situations in our lives feel that much worse.
Feeling your feelings and regulating how you feel your feelings are two very different things- this is where emotional regulation comes in. In childhood, we are conditioned to express and feel our emotions based on the environment and modeling around us. For many of us, we may have experienced invalidating responses or even a lack of response to our emotions. For example, think back to how your parents would regulate their emotions in your childhood home, or the family dynamics that influenced how you viewed the importance of your emotions. Because of this conditioning, as we become adults it can become more and more difficult to manage how we express intense emotions. These skills learned through DBT therapy help us identify, manage, and then actually have our emotions in a way that fosters healthy communication, connection, and validation. Without emotional regulation, we run the risk of building unhealthy emotional patterns and reinforcing harmful lessons we learned earlier in life.
Humans, by nature, crave social connection. However it’s not uncommon that we have feelings of insecurity in our relationships and feel lost in how to navigate them. We may find ourselves having conflicts with loved ones or friends, avoiding confrontation to maintain a relationship, or feeling uninspired to put effort in. Through Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, interpersonal effectiveness skills can help teach us how to navigate and engage in relationships, set healthy boundaries and communicate our needs, as well as build the self esteem needed to prioritize the connections that best serve us. This may look like learning to emphasize and stick by your values in dating new people, or knowing how to say “no” to interpersonal obligations that are burning you out. This will not only strengthen our existing relationships, but can help us build up our confidence to form new, healthy connections.
Starting any type of therapy can be extremely daunting, and Dialectical Behavior Therapy may sound like a long road to haul. However, these skills are built over time with your therapist to ensure you have practice implementing and utilizing them effectively. The ultimate goal is to imagine what you want your life to look like, and then identifying the patterns of negative thinking that may be getting in the way. Through the four modes of Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, you can learn to notice patterns of thinking, feel your emotions freely, regulate how you react to them and express them, and build strong, meaningful relationships.
At Manhattan Wellness, we offer a diverse range of individual counseling services in addition to our DBT therapy. Our dedicated therapists can also help you hone in on specific challenges such as stress management, symptoms of depression, self-esteem challenges, and college student counseling. Additionally, we specialize in offering support for addressing body image concerns, and navigating the unique challenges faced by women, among other aspects. If you need support, reach out to connect with a therapist.