Dialectical-Behaviour Based Therapy (DBT)
DBT is based on cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) but has been adapted to help people who find it difficult to manage strong emotions and conflict in interpersonal relationships and tend to engage in harmful behaviours, such as cutting, binge eating or substance abuse. Its core aim is to help you regulate intense feelings more effectively through learning about triggers, recognising what comes up and dealing with it through achieving a balance between changing what can be changed and acceptance of what cannot be changed.
DBT sessions are mainly focused providing knowledge on emotions and teaching skills that you can apply to your everyday life. DBT skills tend to be grouped into four modules: mindfulness (see MBCT below), distress tolerance (dealing with crisis in more effective ways without resorting to harmful behaviours), emotion regulation (understanding, being more aware of and managing emotions in healthy ways) and interpersonal effectiveness (teaching you ways of being more assertive and confident in your relationships). Full DBT is usually applied through a highly structured programme of group and individual sessions. We have adapted this approach to DBT-based individual therapy.
You might benefit if you wish to change harmful ways of managing emotions and relationships, want to become more present in the given moment and interact more effectively with others. If you are mainly interested in talking about your problems in general and trying to understand where they came from, then other approaches we offer might be more suitable.
For more information, please go to:
https://behavioraltech.org/resources/faqs/dialectical-behavior-therapy-dbt/
The Lighthouse Psychology Practice