Dialectical Behavior Therapy Group

Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills Group

Maintaining emotional balance in today's society is extremely difficult. The repeated stressful events can overwhelm a person quickly because they are unable to recover fully before another stressful event occurs. Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills group offers four skills that are designed to helped individuals manage instability. The hope is that people who have problems expressing anger, depression, anxiety, and other stress emotions.

DBT Group Skill Modules

The skills models the DBT skills group created include Mindfulness, Distress Tolerance, Emotion Regulation, and Interpersonal Effectiveness. With these skills, a person should be able to focus his or her mind off the situation, be able to accept that situation, change the way he or she handles his or her emotions during the situation, and finally, asking for help without feelings of guilt.

When you attend group therapy with DBT, you are assigned homework that is reviewed at the next therapy session. Hopefully after you finish therapy, you will have the tools needed to handle stressful times.

Mindfulness and Stress Reduction

One of the hardest areas to re-direct your thoughts is in the workplace. More studies are being done to help reduce burnout and increase creativity as the job field becomes more difficult to enter. DBT also battles the fact that more companies are attempting to get employees to multi-task, which actually decreases productivity. However, if a person is practicing the Mindfulness skill, they are able to increase productivity and reduce stress. Some simple tasks that you can do at work to increase your Mindfulness include performing breathing exercises and making sure you sit straight. While you may feel silly or uncomfortable, the benefits are limitless.

Distress Tolerance

The Distress Tolerance skill uses the ability to reduce the stress in your life by accepting the fact there are trials and you are not perfect. Seeking perfection does nothing more than create additional stress that may come in the form of depression or anxiety. When you make a mistake, you need to remember that you are human and focus on the positives. With Distress Tolerance, you need to accept that humans make mistakes and that your only option is to move forward and learn from the mistake.

Emotion Regulation

Regulating your emotions is the most important part of handling stressful times. Regulating requires one to know what he or she is feeling and then changing the negatives into positives. There are several ways to think optimistically, even in the most trying times. Often times this is considered looking for a silver lining. If you have a hard time finding one, then making goals and sticking to them can help keep you focused on something other than the trial. By being focused on happiness, you will more than likely have the ability to change your emotions.

Interpersonal Effectiveness

The hardest part of DBT is Interpersonal Effectiveness. This skill is when you learn how to say no and asking for help. These are both extremely difficult because it requires a person to humble him or herself and know they have limits. However, it is also the easiest way to reduce the amount of stress in your life. If you do not realize you are taking on too much, then you can quickly spiral into depression or have an anxiety attack. This is because you are more likely to become overwhelmed and fail. It is this failure that can lead to even more stress, furthering the cycle of stress.

Attending DBT groups and learning skills to help you deal with the stress in your life, will also make you a better parent. When you are happy, you can handle the stresses that children and responsibilities heap upon you. Happiness is not always possible though, so knowing and using the skills you learn in DBT groups allow you to cope. You will be able to handle your children's needs, as well as the entire home and work needs.

With DBT groups, you will not only be given the skills necessary to handle life's stressful times, but also the knowledge on how to use them. They will give you real life scenarios as homework and have you work to figure out the proper response. Handling stress on your own often leads to worsened health and mental status, but DBT group skills try to help you make life just touch easier.

For an updated, more in-depth look at this topic, see New DBT Skills Group Forming Now.