DBT Class in Emotion Regulation Skills
DBT is a skills-based programme for people who experience difficulties in regulating their emotions, including those whose challenges get described in the medical world with labels such as borderline personality disorder (BPD) or complex post-traumatic stress. If intense emotions, unmanageable distress or problematic behaviours interfere with your ability to be an effective human being, for example in the context of personal or professional relationships, DBT might help.
It will assist you in coping effectively with self-harm, extreme emotional sensitivity, mood swings, ADHD, eating difficulties, anger, depression, anxiety, intense relationships, impulsivity, and ultimately in building a fruitful, satisfying life.
There are five DBT modules which are attended in conjunction with individual therapy or on a stand-alone basis:
1. 12-week emotion regulation module involves learning to recognise and label current emotions, identify obstacles to changing emotions, reduce emotional vulnerability and reactivity, increase positive emotions and harness a more positive long-term outlook, and change emotions that are unhelpful or unwarranted. This module will also teach you how to gradually decrease avoidance of feelings and become more comfortable experiencing emotions.
2. 6-week core mindfulness and middle path module is designed to teach you how to increase your awareness levels, decrease reactivity and judgmentalness, focus better, train your attention, accept current moment experiences and be more compassionate towards yourself. This module will also teach you how to avoid taking extreme positions and instead acknowledge the validity of different positions and others’ perspectives.
3. 8-week distress tolerance module is centred on accepting difficult situations and emotions and finding ways to survive and tolerate the moment without engaging in problematic behaviours such as self-harm, conflict, substance misuse or other impulsive behaviours. You will learn how to respond to stressful and overwhelming emotions by engaging both your body and mind in the process. This module will cover both strategies of change and acceptance.
4. 8-week interpersonal effectiveness module teaches strategies aimed at improving your communication in order to foster healthy relationships. You will learn skills to ask for what you need, say no, set boundaries and cope with interpersonal conflict in a way that influences others whilst enhancing the relationship and your self-respect. This module is of particular relevance to individuals who experience their relationships as chaotic, intense and unstable, and those who feel that their needs are never met in relationships.
5. 10-week relationship skills in action is an advanced module for people who have attended the Interpersonal Effectiveness DBT module and want to enhance their interpersonal skills further, improve existing relationships and build new ones. In this module you will learn about the theory and practice of dialectical thinking, balancing opposites, how to balance intense desire for change with acceptance of the moment, validation of self and others, recovering from invalidation, building new relationships, getting people to like you, how to communicate our emotions to others, mindfulness of others, reinforcement and strategies for changing behaviour.
There will also be two practice sessions to immerse yourself in the application of the skills. You will also be able to bring your own real-life scenarios and receive suggestions from the group trainer on how to approach them skillfully.