Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT)

Why DBT?

The pain is real! You’ve used unhealthy ways of suppressing the pain, but trying to repress the pain isn’t working.

What you’ve done so far may have been harmful, but it has worked for you so long that it is difficult to imagine trying anything else.

Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) can help you manage the pain and regulate the emotions you’ve found difficult to cope with for years.

You may not get rid of the pain totally, but maybe you can reduce the suffering associated with the pain.

Find a Middle Path.

DBT embraces the concept of taking the Middle Path. Many think two opposing things can’t exist; however, dialectics pose a truth kernel in each person’s perspective. Dialectics represents the art of being able to hold two or more things that seem contradictory in balance. Maybe, you have an internal contradiction you struggle to accept, such as anger with your loved one must mean that you do not love them. Loving someone and being angry with them may seem paradoxical indeed. DBT provides you with skills that help you accept both.

So often, we get stuck in our minds with the feeling that things are either/or, and we have a hard time accepting things could be both/and. Dialectics seem paradoxical because the very definition of dialectics means the integration of two ideas that seem contradictory. DBT eases you from the extreme and helps provide a new perspective that allows for increased balance in your outlook.

You may question how opposites can co-exist. DBT can show you how the Ying and the Yang can co-exist and teach you the skills to help you see how possible it is to take the Middle Path.

DBT helps address many issues.

DBT is a form of Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy developed by Marsha Linehan for treating borderline personality disorder and suicidal clients.

This therapy is an evidence-based treatment modality proven to treat not only personality disorders and suicidal tendencies, but is also effective for treating eating disorders, depression, and substance use – to name a few.

Embrace a life worth living.

One of the goals of DBT is to help you live a life worth living. Life IS worth living when you’re in it!

The DBT therapist understands that you may have grown up in an environment where you felt invalidated.

DBT can help you believe that change is possible because one of the things that DBT will help you with is embracing a life worth living. You will learn how to develop your interpersonal skills so that you ask for what you want in relationships.

You will find the skills you learn in DBT are transferable to life outside the therapy room.

You may be just making it one day at a time. Practicing the skills when you don’t need them will help you be more conscious of using them in times of crisis when you need them.

DBT involves four modules.

These modules include mindfulness, emotional regulation, distress tolerance, and interpersonal effectiveness skills.

When you begin therapy with me, my first goal is to help you be present in both the room and your body. At first, the skills you learn may seem foreign – that’s okay. Learning a new skill takes time. I invite you to press through the discomfort. Your ability to be present will help increase the trust you have in the therapeutic relationship.

There is a wide variety of practical skills that you will learn to implement in your life during the week. The length of treatment will depend on what you need and on how much you’re willing to work toward your goals.

Working together, I will help you explore how two opposing concepts can be true and help you move from being stuck in those same problem-solving patterns that have not worked for you.

Let me help you move toward and build a life worth living.