Dialectical behavior therapy is more than a therapeutic intervention; at its best, it is a lifestyle that helps us greatly navigate the world at large and our interior emotional world. When practiced, the skills provided by DBT can be used to stop behaviors that make our situations worse and increase effective behaviors.
Effective in DBT
Effective is a big word in DBT, so let’s define it: being effective is doing what works and avoiding what doesn’t work. It is playing the cards you’ve been dealt, not what you wish was happening, not what’s right and wrong, good or bad, fair or unfair, which only serves to waste our mental energy. This doesn’t sound easy, but it’s about changing our habits.
Mindfulness
This all begins with mindfulness, where we learn a new way to connect with our thoughts and feelings. Mindfulness is where we begin to understand our negative self-judgments and how harmful they can be. For example, let’s say you miss a day of work, in and of itself not the biggest deal. However, if missing that day brings up judgments such as “I’m losing my job,” “I’m not trustworthy,” I’m never going to be reliable,” this can create a day full of pain. Learning to separate our judgments from our thoughts and feelings is at the heart of mindfulness and DBT.
Another benefit of mindfulness practice is bringing ourselves back to the now. Let’s understand the importance of this, when we are mentally stuck in the past, beating ourselves up about perceived failure or trauma, we tend to be living in depression.
Conversely, when we are living in the future mentally, worrying about what comes next, we tend to be living in anxiety. Once we begin to practice mindfulness, we can handle any thoughts and feelings that arise and feel more in control of where we want to go mentally. It’s as if the bus is no longer driving us emotionally, and we now have control of how long we stay with a thought or feeling without “going down the rabbit hole.”
Mindfulness is the cornerstone of DBT, and the following parts of this series will explain how it blends with the three modules that come next.
Summary
