PAT HARVEY

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DBT Treatment fulfills the following functions:

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• Improving Motivation to change by gaining and maintaining commitment to changing unhealthy behaviors that may help meet immediate needs and that also have longer term negative consequences

• Enhancing Capabilities by teaching and reinforcing the use of new skills

• Ensuring Skill Generalization by coaching individuals to use skills in their environment and by encouraging practice and completion of homework

• Structuring the environment by helping parents to developing a safe, validating and non-judgmental environment that reinforces healthy behaviors and lessens reactivity to unhealthy behaviors.

• Improving therapists’ motivation and capabilities by providing a learning and validating environment for therapists

 

"Structuring the environment" may take place when parents, caregivers and other supportive family members learn DBT skills and effectively implement those skills in support of their loved ones. Parents and other family members can de-escalate emotionally intense situations by validating their loved one and remaining calm themselves. They can also learn to reinforce and respond positively to adaptive and healthy behaviors and to be less responsive to unsafe behaviors. While change is up to each individual, and up to the person who is having difficulties, change in family members may lead to different responses and different behaviors from their loved ones over time.

The various modes of treatment that help to fulfill the above functions and that define comprehensive DBT treatment include:

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• Individual therapy

• Skills Training Groups

• Telephone/Crisis Coaching

• Consulting with family and other environments to encourage the reinforcement of healthy/adaptive behaviors

• Consultation Team

 

Skills Training involves learning skills that increase:

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• Mindfulness - awareness of self and others in the moment, learning how to be non-judgmental and do what is effective (what works) by thinking wisely rather than emotionally

• Emotion Regulation - awareness of emotions, how they develop and how their intensity can be reduced

• Distress Tolerance - how to manage difficult situations without making them worse and also learning how to accept life in this moment when it cannot be changed

• Interpersonal Effectiveness - learning how to ask for things skillfully while maintaining relationships and self-respect

• Finding the Middle Path/Balanced Family and Parenting Responses - by learning how to think dialectically, validate (to show acceptance)  and use behavioral principles to bring about change

 

Many parents and family members find the Distress Tolerance skills helpful in managing stressful situations in ways that do not make the situation worse. Skills include learning to distract from painful emotions by engaging in pleasant or soothing activities. Distress Tolerance skills also help individuals to accept the life they have even if it is not the life they want. Acceptance of painful situations, even if you don’t like them, enables individuals to move from suffering to problem solving and allows him/her to find opportunities for change

DBT skills help everyone who learns them how to develop a non-judgmental awareness of this moment, find ways to distract and self-soothe when life becomes difficult, find a balanced approach to parenting and to life, and develop the most effective strategies to help him/her develop the life he/she wants to have. Its benefits go way beyond its original intentions and help those who learn the skills and strategies to live ever more meaningful and fulfilling lives.