“At least 135 Million people suffer with severe problems from emotional regulation in their lives” (The Linehan Institute, 2021).

DBT Overview image
 Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) is a "building lives worth living program," not a suicide prevention program (Linehan, 2017d). Marsha Linehan originally created DBT as a multi-component cognitive behavioral treatment for chronically suicidal individuals with borderline personality disorder (BPD) which has now become the gold standard for psychological treatment of this population as well as other disorders (The Linehan Institute, 2021). The American Psychological Association (APA) (2020) defines DBT as a flexible, stage-based psychotherapy that comprises elements of behavior therapy, cognitive behavior therapy (CBT), and mindfulness with an underlying emphasis on helping individuals learn to both regulate and tolerate their emotions. DBT is designed for especially difficult-to-treat patients (APA, 2020).

Standard DBT is an intensive treatment program that consists of individual therapy, group skills training, inter-session contact/telephone coaching (e.g., real-time or text), and a therapist consultation team (Linehan, 2015). If the therapist does not have a team, it is not DBT (Schaller, 2015 ). Generally, the client commits to a one year treatment plan, with 3-4 hours of weekly interactions in individual therapy, group skills training, inter-session contact, and out-of-session activities, such as maintaining a diary card. An overarching goal of DBT is to keep clients in their lives, connected with family, friends, work, school, and other important relationships (Schaller, 2015).

DBT clinicians ascribe to certain beliefs or assumptions in order to effectively treat, such as the client/therapist relationship is a real, transactional relationship between equals; and the client is doing the best they can and wants to improve whilst also maintaining the client needs to do better, try harder, and be motivated to change. (Vaughn, 2021). This is a core feature of DBT— the "D" or dialectics of the approach—acceptance and change (e.g., embracing opposites that exist simultaneously in a “both-and” model” rather than an “either-or” stance!) (Vaughn).
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