What is DBT?
DBT, or Dialectical Behavior Therapy, is a therapy designed to target dangerous or destructive behavior patterns. While DBT programs are also used to treat conditions like anxiety and depression, they are traditionally aimed at individuals who struggle with suicidal tendencies and/or self-harming and substance abuse. DBT combines multiple approaches, including individual and group therapy sessions, to attempt to target triggers that lead to negative behaviors.
DBT focuses on four different types of behavioral skills: mindfulness, emotion regulation, interpersonal effectiveness, and distress tolerance. You or your loved one are good candidates for DBT if you routinely participate in behaviors meant to negatively affect or “punish” yourself. If you are a participant in a DBT program, you will likely spend several months working with a therapist or team of therapists to identify your personal stressors and go-to self-harming methods. Together, you will work to change your body’s neurochemistry and therefore change your physical responses to stress, anger, disappointment, fear, loneliness, and a host of other emotions.
What is “self-harming?”
Self-harming is a general term that refers to the deliberate harming or mutilation of one’s own body. The most well known self-harm behavior is cutting, but self-harm can take many forms including burning, biting, pulling out hair, scratching, and picking at skin. General self-neglect and consciously putting oneself in unsafe situations as a punishment also fall under the umbrella of self-harming.
Why is DBT useful in situations where clients are self-harming?
In many cases, self-harming can be life threatening—and in DBT treatment programs, life-threatening behaviors are the first issues to be addressed. DBT treatment differs from classic cognitive therapy approaches in the sense that it directly focuses on the alteration of behaviors and physical actions.
Most DBT strategies that you are taught will focus on changing your body’s response to a stressful situation. DBT methods seek to “shock” your body into subconsciously changing your heart rate and breathing patterns, therefore changing your stress level and your need to cope using self-harming behaviors.
Temperature is a common element used in DBT, as rapidly raising or lowering your body temperature subconsciously affects your body’s breathing and heart rate. Taking a hot bath, walking around in the sunshine, or even applying ice packs to your body are all DBT methods that are used to help get through difficult situations. Because DBT strategies require intense focus in the moment, they are typically the most successful ways to distract you from self-harming behaviors.
Over time, DBT seeks to change your thought patterns that eventually become actions. DBT programs are highly interactive and very hands-on, incorporating role-playing, homework assignments, group therapy, and tangible coping mechanisms, such as a box filled with soothing scents or pictures.
Oftentimes, individuals turn to self-harming behaviors to cope because they lack other, more effective ways to process situations and handle problems. If you or a loved one have found yourself self-harming to soothe pain and ease emotional distress, Dialectical Behavior Therapy has the potential to offer you permanent freedom from your destructive behaviors. By teaching you mindfulness, distress tolerance, and emotion regulation, DBT therapists can help you take back your life. Learning to master DBT techniques is a process that can take months or even years—but once the skill set has been obtained, it becomes invaluable.
