A LiFE WORTH LIVING
HOW DBT Skills Help
Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) can be very helpful if we ever feel confused about ourselves, struggle to focus on our goals, or have a hard time figuring out what we want, it can be challenging. Sometimes, we might not be sure of who we really are or find it difficult to stay aware of our thoughts and feelings. DBT can help us:
Manage impulsive reactions in different aspects of our lives, like relationships, work, and other important areas.
Form and maintain relationships or communicate effectively to get what we need from people.
Control behaviors that are strongly influenced by our emotions, especially when our feelings are intense.
Learn how to regulate our emotions and return to a calm and collected state, which is unique to each person.
Deal with issues like thoughts of suicide or self-harm, problems with substance use (with 82% experiencing a reduction or abstinence in the first year), eating disorders, depression in older individuals, low self-esteem, adjusting to changes, feelings of hopelessness, relationship difficulties or violence, self-hatred, medical problems, childhood sexual abuse, intense emotions, psychiatric hospitalizations, and persistent crises
What is DBT?
Mindfulness skills help us pay attention to what's happening right now, both inside ourselves and in the world around us. It helps us stay focused and centered.
Emotion Regulation skills help us manage our feelings better, even though it's okay not to have complete control over our emotions.
Interpersonal Effectiveness skills are about keeping and improving relationships, whether it's with people we're close to or those we don't know well.
Distress Tolerance skills help us handle tough situations and get through them without making things worse.
Why learn DBT Skills
Dr. Marsha M. Linehan, the person who created Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), says that the main goal of learning DBT Skills is to help people create lives that they find meaningful and enjoyable. According to her, the key to DBT is the determination to be effective in whatever you're doing, which is crucial for success in all areas of life.
DBT uses the Theory of Dialectics to deal with conflicting truths and experiences that naturally happen in life to find the ultimate truth. The basic idea is to balance Acceptance, where we learn to accept ourselves and others as they are, along with the reality around us, and Change, which means being committed to finding new and better ways to live.
Scientific Evidence For DBT
There is a wealth of evidence supporting the effectiveness of DBT. The first randomized controlled trial (RCT) of DBT was published in 1991, in which Dr. Marsha Linehan and her colleagues found that DBT resulted in significant improvements for chronically suicidal and self-injuring women with borderline personality disorder, a clinical population that had previously been viewed as untreatable (Linehan et al., 1991). In the decades since this landmark study, DBT has been extensively researched for individuals with a wide range of mental health conditions receiving treatment in diverse practice settings around the world. RCT and Non-RCT Summaries.
Research studies
Research on DBT is rapidly expanding, and new studies are being published at increasingly accelerated rates. A PsycInfo search shows an average of 8 published and peer-reviewed DBT articles per year from 1993 to 2000, 41 publications per year from 2001 to 2010, and 78 per year since 2011. As a result, staying current on the latest findings in DBT research can be quite challenging. You can review DBT research updates on Behavioral Tech.org. This webpage is updated regularly to provide researchers, clinicians, clients, and their families with the most up-to-date evidence available on DBT.
Click below for archived, printable summaries of RCT and non-RCT studies.