Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)
What is DBT?
Dialectical Behavior Therapy (often shortened to DBT) is a skills-based approach to psychotherapy that includes aspects of mindfulness and congnitive behavioral therapy. DBT was originally developed for women coping with borderline personality disorder BPD, but its use has since been expanded to include treatment for a wide variety of individuals and issues.
The word “dialectical” refers to this therapy’s focus on learning to balance and tolerate opposites, with the goal of releasing attachment to black-and-white thinking. The philosophical foundation of dialectics underlies DBT therapy, which strives to help individuals accept present realities while also working toward change.
Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) usually includes both individual talk therapy sessions and group sessions focused on developing four central skill sets. These skills training areas are:
Both individual sessions and group sessions usually occur weekly over the course of several months, though the length of treatment may vary. Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) is more structured than some other varieties of psychotherapy, but that said, your therapist may recommend a more flexible approach that focuses more on either individual or group work.
Though DBT is used to treat people with various mental health conditions, its goals usually include improving overall mood, more effective management of emotions and difficult situations, and improved interpersonal skills.
What can Dialectical Behavior Therapy help with?
DBT was originally developed for use with women who have borderline personality disorder (BPD), but now it may also be used as a treatment for a variety of mental health concerns, including:
Increasingly, therapy based on Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) is considered a treatment possibility for anyone struggling with issues around emotion regulation, interpersonal skills, and/or tolerance of distressing realities.
Does Dialectical Behavior Therapy work?
The most extensive body of research about DBT’s effectiveness concerns its use in the treatment of borderline personality disorder (BPD). For these individuals, data from several studies have found that DBT can be highly effective in improving coping skills, stabilizing mood, improving interpersonal skills, and reducing the risk of suicide. However, a smaller body of more recent research also suggests that DBT therapy also can be effective for treating other conditions. While DBT has traditionally been implemented as a series of complementary components, some studies also suggest that using just some of its skills modules or components might also be a helpful treatment choice for a variety of mental health diagnoses.
How does Dialectical Behavior Therapy work?
DBT integrates strategies and techniques from a range of mental health treatments to form one comprehensive treatment program. Individual sessions often have a lot in common with traditional talk therapy sessions and may incorporate aspects of cognitive behaviral treatment such as checklists, worksheets, and examining thoughts for cognitive distortions. The individual session also serves the purpose of reinforcing the tools learned in group skills training sessions and discussing how you’ve been applying them in your day-to-day life.
In contrast, group sessions usually focus on specific DBT skills training and competencies. Some exercises you might explore in group DBT sessions include:
Sometimes, DBT also includes regular check-ins or phone coaching with a therapist to provide added support around implementing these skills.
All aspects of DBT rely on the philosophy of dialectics, and both individual and group sessions will likely include exploration of its concepts and how to apply them in daily life.
Structure of Dialectical Behavior Therapy sessions
In an individual DBT session, your therapist will likely begin by checking in with you about your experiences since the last session, with a focus on how you may have coped with any challenging emotions. Many therapists also include formal assessments, a self-monitoring form, or other written tools at the beginning of each session to help track your progress and offer perspective on the skills you’re gaining. Additionally, individual sessions will include attention to the skills you’ve been working on in group sessions and a discussion of how you’ve been applying these skills to real-life situations. Often, your individual therapist will also guide you in working toward viewing your life through the lens of dialectics, in which acknowledgment of current realities is balanced with goals for practical change.
In a group DBT session, a therapist will lead you and other participating people through exercises designed to help you learn and practice concrete skills in the four focus areas outlined above. Most sessions will be a mixture of educational content and hands-on practice (for example, your therapist might describe a new breathing exercise and explain why it could be useful, and then ask the group to try out the exercise together). Group sessions are also likely to include a review of the previous week’s content and a discussion of how people have been applying the skills learned, as well as attention to any challenges experienced in doing so. Often, therapy professionals will assign group members specific homework assignments to complete between sessions, so sessions might involve going over this homework. Finally, the therapist will give instructions for what each group member might focus on in preparation for the next session.
