Negative emotions and feelings are challenging to deal with for anyone. When you’re sad, stressed, embarrassed, or angry, it’s normal to respond in various ways. However, sometimes you may struggle with your emotional regulation skills, leading you to turn to maladaptive coping strategies in response to difficult feelings. This only makes your situation worse, especially if you have a mental health disorder or addiction. However, dialectical behavior therapy techniques (DBT) can be key in helping you respond to your emotions in a healthier way. In fact, they are a staple in evidence-based mental health and addiction treatment.
Poor Emotional Regulation Skills and Maladaptive Coping Strategies
Before exploring DBT techniques further, it’s important to understand why this type of therapy matters in the first place. And it all starts with trauma. When you experience trauma, if left untreated its effects can negatively impact you years later (even from a traumatic experience that happened decades ago). Consequently, your trauma can influence your brain in harmful ways over time. One of the effects of trauma on your brain is poor emotional regulation skills, aka your ability to manage your emotions.
If you struggle with poor emotional regulation skills, you’re easily rattled by everyday stressors or negative feelings. That means your distress tolerance is low. Because these feelings affect you more deeply, you’re more inclined to do something drastic to cope. However, if trauma’s toll over time has led you to develop mental health disorders like PTSD or anxiety disorder, you may respond by relying on maladaptive coping strategies.
Maladaptive coping strategies often look like using drugs or alcohol as a way to self-medicate your negative feelings. Unfortunately, these emotional regulation strategies only provide temporary relief, so you have to repeat them again and again when negative feelings surface. Over time, this can lead to addiction, negatively impacting your emotional regulation skills even further. Eventually, negative feelings become a trigger for addiction cravings, compounding your problems. At this point, getting professional help from an evidence-based practice is needed to heal.
What is an Evidence-Based Practice?
When you’re struggling with your mental health, addiction, or both (in the case of co-occurring disorders), partnering with a professional treatment center is critical. However, not all treatment centers are created equal, so it’s best to choose a program that is evidence-based. But what is an evidence-based practice, exactly? It’s a treatment center that integrates the best available research with clinical expertise, all within the context of patient characteristics, culture, and preferences. That means you’re getting the highest level of care, backed by years of proven results individualized to your needs.
As a proud evidence-based practice in North Carolina, our team at The Blanchard Institute takes a comprehensive, family-centered approach to mental health and addiction treatment. We incorporate a variety of evidence-based therapies into our care, including:
- Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT)
- Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT)
- Medication-assisted treatment (MAT)
- Group therapy
- Motivational interviewing
We personalize our therapies based on your unique situation and goals to ensure you’re getting the treatment you need to heal. And among these evidence-based therapies, dialectical behavior therapy is often a foundational part of your treatment and recovery journey.
Understanding Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)
Dialectical behavior therapy is a type of talk therapy or psychotherapy. Rooted in cognitive behavioral therapy, DBT is commonly used to treat people who experience emotions very intensely, according to the Cleveland Clinic. It was originally developed in the 1980s by American psychologist Marsha Linehan in response to treating self-harm and suicidal behaviors in those with borderline personality disorder. Where patients felt invalidated by traditional CBT approaches at the time, DBT focused on the importance of expressing acceptance of patient experiences instead of avoiding or condemning them.
Research has since shown that dialectical behavior therapy is effective at treating a wide range of conditions today, from PTSD and depression to substance abuse and eating disorders. The core of DBT is navigating opposing strategies of acceptance and change. This makes sense when you realize that the term “dialectical” simply means a synthesis or integration of opposites.
In the DBT process, therapists accept clients as they are now while also emphasizing the need for future change in order to heal, explains the University of Washington. The therapist will validate the clients’ thoughts as making sense based on all that they’ve been through, but they don’t have to agree with the client’s thoughts. As a result, the strategies and skills taught in DBT strike a balance between acceptance and change. You learn how to better manage intense emotions, cope with challenging situations, practice mindfulness, and improve your relationships, according to Harvard Health Publishing.
Dialectical Behavior Therapy Components: How It Works
Whether you’re participating in DBT for addiction, a mental health disorder, or both, the therapy approach consists of four main parts. These dialectical behavior therapy components include:
Individual Therapy
During individual therapy, you’re meeting weekly with your therapist or treatment team for a roughly one-hour DBT session. Each session focuses on specific treatment goals common to DBT. Outlined in order of priority, these treatment goals include:
- Treating any life-threatening behaviors, such as self-harm and suicidal ideation
- Reducing specific behaviors that interfere with your treatment, such as not collaborating, cancelling sessions, or being late
- Improving your quality of life by addressing anything getting in the way of that, such as substance abuse, mental health challenges, relationships problems, or financial issues
- Learning new skills to help you replace poor behaviors and achieve your long-term goals
SOURCE: University of Washington
Dialectical Behavior Therapy Groups
Often run like a class, dialectical behavior therapy groups focus on teaching you (as well as others) behavioral skills that enhance your capabilities in everyday life. A therapist will lead the class, guiding you through exercises and lessons. Occurring weekly, each group session lasts about two and a half hours. You may be assigned homework in between sessions, allowing you to practice and apply the skills you’re taught.
Phone Coaching
Your therapist may be on-call during certain time frames, allowing you to contact them for on-demand DBT therapy or coaching. Often done in moments of great need or crisis, phone coaching can help you learn to apply the skills you’ve developed to a specific challenge in the moment.
Consultation Team Meetings
The fourth of the dialectical behavior therapy components is completed behind the scenes without your involvement. According to Yale Medicine, consultation team meetings involve therapists gathering together to discuss their cases, share and gain insights, and make sure your treatment follows DBT principles.
The Impact of Dialectical Behavior Therapy Techniques
While DBT is a versatile evidence-based therapy utilized to treat a variety of conditions, what really sets it apart as a staple of addiction and mental health treatment is the skill set you can acquire as a result. Each skill is highly practical, meaning you can continue to use it in your day-to-day life long after your therapy sessions. With that said, the skills you learn from DBT techniques include:
- Mindfulness – Learning to practice mindfulness allows you to be fully aware of the present moment and accept it without judgment. This helps you to stay focused on the task at hand without worrying about the past or future.
- Distress Tolerance Skills – Developing distress tolerance skills empowers you to accept and tolerate stress or pain in a healthier way. Instead of responding harmfully, you learn that pain and distress cannot be entirely avoided in life, but it can be tolerated well.
- Emotional Regulation Strategies – Rather than using maladaptive coping strategies, you practice healthier ways to manage your emotions by understanding and controlling them. DBT equips you with several productive emotional regulation strategies, such as identifying and labeling your emotions in the moment, identifying obstacles that get in the way of modifying how you feel, and seeking positive experiences in response.
- Interpersonal Effectiveness – You gain strategies to assert yourself better in social situations, such as knowing how to say “no,” ask for what you want, and set healthy boundaries. You also learn how to maintain self-respect, manage conflict, and build relationships.
SOURCES: Cleveland Clinic and Yale Medicine
DBT Techniques and the Recovery Journey
Because you can implement the above DBT skills into your daily life, they work well to support your recovery long after you complete an addiction treatment program. By learning better emotional regulation skills, you’re less likely to relapse when future cravings or triggers arise. The interpersonal effectiveness you’ve developed can help you set boundaries around people or situations in order to protect your sobriety. And mindfulness and distress tolerance skills can keep you grounded when a negative thought or feeling occurs, so you don’t spiral toward self-medication.
We Can Help at The Blanchard Institute
If you’re currently struggling with addiction or your mental health, professional, evidence-based treatment — including DBT — can help you achieve lasting healing. At The Blanchard Institute, our dual diagnosis treatment program provides a safe, supportive, and family-focused environment for you to address each of your conditions in one place. If you’re ready to overcome your struggles, become a better version of yourself, and learn valuable life skills along the way, contact our team now.