What are the Modules of Dialectical Behavioral Therapy or DBT?

Here are the modules of DBT listed below:

Mindfulness

The important aspect of all the skills being taught by a therapist in Mental Health Services Minnesota in the skills group are the core mindfulness skills. They are observe, describe, and participate of ‘what’ skills. They tell you what should you do to practice core mindfulness skills? The ‘how’ skills are non judgmentally, one mindfully and effectively and it answers the question, “How to practice the core mindfulness skills?”

Interpersonal effectiveness

The interpersonal response patters or how to interact with people in your life that are taught in DBT skills training share a lot of similarities to those who are taught some assertiveness and interpersonal problem solving sessions. These skills encompass effective strategies to ask what one needs, how to say no assertively and learning to cope with interpersonal conflict. People with borderline personality disorder have good interpersonal skills. They face conflict, but when applying these skills, particularly emotionally vulnerable situations. A person may be able to delineate the effective behavioral sequences when discussing the problems of others but can be unable to implement the similar set of behaviors when dealing with their own personal situations. This module emphasizes on cases where the objective is to change something or to resist changes somebody else is trying to make. The skills taught are meant to maximize the chances that the goals of the person are met while not damaging the relationship or his self respect.

Distress tolerance

Mostly, mental health is about coping with the distress. They pay little attention to accepting, finding meaning, and tolerating distress. This task is tackled by religious and spiritual leaders. Dialectical behavioral therapy focuses more on tolerating the pain skillfully. The distress tolerance skills entail a natural development from mindfulness skills. They are related to accepting the situation with a non-evaluative and nonjudgmental fashion with oneself and current situation. It may be more about being nonjudgmental but not of approval. Acceptance is not approval of reality. These behaviors are related to tolerating and surviving distress with accepting life as it is. Four stages are taught: distraction, self soothing, improvement and coming up with pros and cons.

Emotion regulation

People with BPD or suicidal people are emotionally intense, they may get frequently angry, frustrated, depressed and anxious. This indicates that people dealing with these may benefit from the help in learning to manage these emotions.

Skills may include:

1. Learning to determine and label emotions
2. Determining obstacles to changing emotions
3. Eliminating the vulnerability
4. Thinking positively in crisis
5. Increasing mindfulness
6. Taking opposite action
7. Applying distress tolerance techniques.