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Home Blog 3 DBT Skills Everyone Can Benet From

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Psychotherapy
Types About the Blog Archives
Behavior Therapy
Cognitive Therapy 3 DBT Skills Everyone Can Benet From
Dialectical
Behavior Therapy By Margarita Tartakovsky, M.S.
Interpersonal Associate Editor
Therapy ~ 4 min read

Psychodynamic
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3/11/2016 3DBTSkillsEveryoneCanBenefitFrom|WorldofPsychology
Psychodynamic
Therapy
Family Therapy
Group Therapy
Frequently Asked
Questions (FAQs)
about
Psychotherapy
Understanding
Dierent
Approaches to Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) is a highly eective
Psychotherapy type of cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), originally
created to treat borderline personality disorder. Today,
Do I Need its used to treat a variety of conditions, such as bipolar
Therapy? Quiz disorder, eating disorders and depression. DBT teaches
clients four sets of behavioral skills: mindfulness;
Our Blogs distress tolerance; interpersonal eectiveness; and
Dialectical emotion regulation.
Behavior Therapy
Understood But, whether you have a mental illness or not, you can
Equine Therapy absolutely benet from learning these skills and
Mindfulness & incorporating them into your life. Below,
Psychotherapy psychotherapist Sheri Van Dijk, MSW, RSW, shares
Practical three DBT skills that can help you eectively manage
Psychoanalysis your emotions and lead a healthier and happier life.
Therapy Soup Van Dijk is the author of several books, including
The Therapist Calming the Emotional Storm: Using Dialectical Behavior
Within Therapy Skills to Manage Your Emotions & Balance Your
Therapy Life and The Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills Workbook
Unplugged for Bipolar Disorder.

Online Book Mindfulness
How to Find a
Good Therapist According to Van Dijk, mindfulness means living your
life more in the present moment, instead of allowing
Browse through yourself to be hijacked by the past and the future. By
our practicing mindfulness, we become aware of our
Psychotherapy thoughts, feelings, actions and reactions. Were able to
Library pause, check in, identify our emotions and consciously
make healthy decisions.
To practice this skill, Van Dijk suggested going for a
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3/11/2016
To practice this skill, Van Dijk suggested going for a
3DBTSkillsEveryoneCanBenefitFrom|WorldofPsychology

FAQs walk mindfully. Feel your body as it walks, and notice

Cognitive how it just knows what it needs to do in order to move
Distortions each complicated set of muscles to achieve the goal of
Questions to Ask walking. Pay attention to the color of the sky, the trees
Your Therapist youre passing and what the houses look like, she said.
History of
Psychotherapy If your mind wanders, redirect it to the present
What If You Don't moment. You might choose to refocus on your external
Like Your experience: whats happening around you. Or you
Therapist? might refocus on your internal experience: your
Getting a Referral thoughts, emotions and physical sensations. Here the
for Psychotherapy key is to notice what youre experiencing without
Do Educational getting caught up in it.
Degrees Matter?
For instance, if youre entangled in your thoughts, this
Types of Mental
looks like: Susan is really nice. Shes such a great
Health
person. I wish I were more like her. I should ask her if
Professionals
she wants to go for coee sometime. Id like to get to
Characteristics of
know her better. Instead, observing your thoughts
Eective
looks like: Theres a thought that Susan is such a nice
Counseling
person

DBT To learn more about mindfulness, Van Dijks favorite
DBT in the book is The Mindful Way Through Depression, which, she
Treatment of said, comes with a great CD of mindfulness exercises.
Borderline
Personality Reality Acceptance
Disorder
What Does This skill focuses on accepting our daily experiences
Dialectical Mean? and working to accept the more painful events that
Increasing Hope have happened, Van Dijk said. Because ghting reality
for the Treatment only heightens our suering.
of Borderline
Personality For instance, according to Van Dijk, youre sitting in a
Disorder work meeting, bored out of your mind. You start
Another Treatment thinking about all the other things you could be doing.
for Borderline Instead of telling yourself, I have so much stu to do;
Personality this is a waste of my time! you remind yourself: Theres
Disorder

nothing I can do. This is something I have to sit

Get Help through. It is what it is. Breathe.
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Get Help through. It is what it is. Breathe.

Our Psychotherapy
Support Group She also shared these additional examples: You need
Finding Low-Cost to rush home, but youre catching every red light.
Psychotherapy Instead of getting frustrated, you take a deep breath
Find a Therapist and tell yourself: It is what it is. Ill get home when I get
Now there.

You need to ll up your car, but gas prices have

Hot Topics Today skyrocketed. Again, you breathe deeply, and say to
yourself: Theres nothing I can do about it. I need gas.
Getting angry isnt going to help.
Childhood PTSD
May Alter You have to walk to work because your car is in the
shop. Its not far, but its pouring. You take a deep
Structure of breath and say: Its just rain. Ill bring a towel, and Ill
Brain Networks dry o when I get to work.

Nonjudgmental Stance
Normal for
Women to This skill speaks to being less judgmental in general.
Van Dijk suggested starting to notice when you judge
Experience
things as good or bad. Negative judgments tend to
Sexual Decline boost our emotional pain. So when youre angry,
Around irritated or frustrated, pay attention to what judgment
youre making, she said. Then focus on replacing that
Menopause
judgment with a fact and any emotions youre feeling.

Van Dijk shared these examples: Instead of the

Virtual Reality weather is awful today, you say its raining this
Rehabilitation morning, and Im irritated because I have to walk to
Can Improve work. Instead of saying, youre an awful friend, you
say: There have been a few times recently when youve
Mobility canceled plans with me at the last minute to go out
with someone else instead. And I feel hurt and angry by
Multi-Ethnic this.

Neighborhoods Instead of saying, My partner is an idiot, you say: Ive

been working long hours and when I got home last
night my partner asked me what I was making for
Increasing dinner. I felt really angry about this and disappointed
that hes not making an eort to help out.
Across the U.S.
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that hes not making an eort to help out.
Across the U.S.
Being less judgmental doesnt eliminate our pain. But it
does help us reduce emotions such as anger. [A]nd in
Six Questions to doing so were able to think more clearly and wisely,
Assess If You opening up choices for us [such as] do I want to spend
May Be energy being angry at this person? It also empowers
us to problem solve, and again, make decisions that
Addicted to serve and support us.
Social Media
For instance, Van Dijk took her laptop to get xed. After
she picked it up, she realized that vital presentations
and documents were missing. It turns out that the
person didnt back up her C: drive because he thought
she saved everythingunder documents.
Understandably, Van Dijk was incredibly upset. But she
took a deep breath, and instead of yelling and
criticizing him, she asked what they could do.

It might not get solved. But judging him is only going

to amplify my anger, and I just dont want to spend the
energy on that. Shes also proud of how she handled
the situation, which boosted her self-respect. And it
didnt raise her blood pressure or trigger other physical
issues.

Again, all of us can benet from becoming moreaware

of our thoughts and feelings, accepting what is and
being less judgmental of ourselves and others.
Undoubtedly, these are skills thatlead to a healthier
life.

Man in the rain photo available from Shutterstock

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About Margarita Tartakovsky, M.S.

Margarita Tartakovsky, M.S., is an Associate
Editor at Psych Central. She also explores self-
image issues on her own blog Weightless and
creativity on her blog Make a Mess: Everyday
Creativity.
View all posts by Margarita Tartakovsky, M.S.

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APA Reference
Tartakovsky, M. (2015). 3 DBT Skills Everyone Can
Benet From. Psych Central. Retrieved on November 3,
2016, from
http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2015/08/28/3-
dbt-skills-everyone-can-benet-from/

Last reviewed: By John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on 30

Aug 2015
Originally published on PsychCentral.com on
28 Aug 2015. All rights reserved.

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