According to a Canadian Mental Health Association poll, more Canadians are beginning to prioritize their mental health now than ever before.
Mental health counselling, in particular, is increasing in demand.
Counselling can come in a variety of different formats. But regardless of the formatting, the main goal of counselling is to identify and challenge your negative thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.
One of the most common therapy modalities is dialectical behavioral therapy.
This is used as a therapy approach by mental health professionals because it is evidence-based.
Originally, it was used to treat borderline personality disorder. Since then, it has been shown to help with other mental health challenges.
Use this blog as your brief guide to what dialectical behavioral therapy is and some of the most common coping strategies used in DBT. You can also explore our other blogs for all things mental health related.
What is Dialectical Behavioral Therapy?
Dialectical behavioural therapy, or DBT, is a popular form of talk therapy that is based on cognitive behavioural therapy.
It is a therapeutic approach that is used for a variety of different concerns where emotions are experienced very intensely.
DBT helps you regulate these intense emotions and improve your interpersonal relationships. It combines validation, acceptance, and behavioral change.
This is done through the concept known as “dialectical,” which means opposites. You will be encouraged to accept the negative aspects of your life while simultaneously discovering and working to change your unhelpful behaviours.
A variety of techniques are used, including mindfulness, distress tolerance, impersonal effectiveness, and emotional regulation.
If you are experiencing mental health challenges and you’re having trouble regulating your emotions or handling interpersonal communication effectively, DBT may be for you.
You could receive therapy in a variety of formats, including individually, in a couple, or with your family.
Regardless of the therapy format you receive at Bee Kind Counselling, the therapy will be taking place virtually.
What Is Mindfulness?
One core aspect of DBT is the teaching of mindfulness. This involves developing skills to learn how to live in the present moment.
You tune into your thoughts, feelings, and behaviours, as well as what is happening in the outside world, and become aware of what is going on, but you don’t allow it to consume you.
The idea is to allow your thoughts, feelings, and sensations to be placed onto a leaf in a river and float on by without placing judgment on the thought.
This technique will be beneficial in a variety of different situations, including situations where you may want to stop and create some time between your automatic negative thoughts and your actions.
What Is Distress Tolerance?
Everyone experiences stress from time to time. Distress tolerance teaches you to accept and manage this distress using positive coping strategies.
Some of these strategies include distracting yourself, exercising, self-soothing through the butterfly hug, or thinking of a pros or cons list.
What Is Interpersonal effectiveness?
Using interpersonal effectiveness, you will discover ways to communicate in a relationship more effectively.
You’ll learn how to communicate your boundaries in an assertive way without using aggression. You will also discover how to listen to other people’s needs effectively.
What Is Emotional Regulation?
Emotional dysregulation involves an inability to manage your negative emotions to the point you become overwhelmed.
In turn, emotional regulation teaches you how to more effectively regulate these emotions. You’ll discover how to identify, name, and regulate the emotions that are negatively impacting your life.
What is DBT Used for?
This form of therapy has been around since the 1970s, when it was created by American psychologists. It was originally developed as a form of treatment for borderline personality disorder.
Since then, DBT has been shown to be effective for supporting individuals through several different life challenges, including:
Bipolar disorder
Self-harm
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
Substance use disorder (SUD)
Suicidal behaviour
Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)
DBT is thought to be effective for the above conditions because they all involve difficulty with regulating intense emotions and managing interpersonal relationships.
Additionally, the benefits of therapy can also involve empowering you to discover your strengths and the unique ways in which you can cope with your mental health challenges.
What Are Some Dialectical Behavioral Therapy Coping Strategies?
Dialectical behavioral therapy coping strategies aim to provide you with the skills that are necessary to regulating your emotions, managing your behaviours, and more effectively navigating and communicating in your relationships.
There are a variety of different techniques that could be used. Let’s dive into these techniques below.
ACCEPTS
Used as an acronym for a variety of distress tolerance techniques, ACCEPTS stands for activities, contribution, comparison, emotions, pushing away, thoughts, and sensations.
Each aspect of the acronym involves using a different skill to manage distress and build up a tolerance to handle it.
Activities: keep your mind busy by filling it with activities that keep you distracted. When you do this activity, try to focus on the activity alone. If thoughts come into your mind, be aware of them, but don’t let them consume you.
Contributions: contribute to your community through volunteering or participating in another community event. This helps you distract yourself and keep your mind on someone else.
Comparisons: compare your current situation to a time when you were worse off. This involves recognizing how far you have come and how much worse off things could truly be.
Emotions: Distract yourself from your negative emotions by cultivating a positive emotion. You could watch funny videos to cultivate laughter, for example.
Pushing away: leave the situation to be able to push it away and take it out of your mind for some time.
Thoughts: focus on different thoughts to distract you from your negative thoughts. For instance, focus on counting backwards from 10 multiple times until you feel calm.
Sensations: use physical sensations to draw your attention away from your negative thoughts. This could involve placing a cold ice cube on your wrist.
ABC PLEASE
This involves strategies used to regulate intense emotions. It is one of the many different emotional regulation acronyms.
It stands for:
Accumulate positives: you’ll slowly start to develop positive emotions by increasing the number of positive experiences you have. You can compile the positive memories from these experiences to cheer you up when you are experiencing intense negative emotions.
Build mastery: this involves doing something every day to build up your confidence in handling negative emotions.
Cope ahead: prepare an action plan that you can use for when you are feeling emotion.
Treat physical illness: when you feel physically sick, this could impact your mental health. This involves speaking to your doctor about managing your physical illnesses that may be making your mental health worse.
Balanced eating: your eating habits could impact your mood and ability to regulate your emotions. Check in with how you are eating lately and if your meals have been balanced.
Avoid mood-altering substances: substances can alter your state of mind and ability to regulate your emotions. Try to avoid mood-alternating substances as much as possible.
Balanced sleep: your sleep is intimately connected to your ability to regulate your mood. Make sure you are getting the recommended amount of sleep for your age.
Balanced exercise: Exercise helps to support your mood. Look into participating in exercises that you engage in and that could lift your mood.
Book a Free Consultation with Bee Kind Counselling
Did you read this blog and feel that dialectical behavioral therapy may be the right fit for you?
Or maybe one of the dialectical behavioral therapy strategies stood out to you and you’d like to learn more about how this type of therapy could benefit you?
If you want to start your journey in therapy and you feel like Bee Kind Counselling may be a potential fit for you, you can book a free 15-minute consultation by emailing admin@beekindcounselling.com, calling 519-757-7842 ext. 1, or booking through the website below.
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