Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) - Katy Dialectical Behavior Therapy Center

What Is Dialectical Behavior Therapy?

Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) is an evidence-based treatment developed by Dr. Marsha Linehan at the University of Washington. It was originally designed for individuals with Borderline Personality Disorder, but has since been proven effective for a wide range of emotional and behavioral challenges including depression, anxiety, PTSD, substance use disorders, and eating disorders.

DBT is built on the concept of dialectics - the balance of opposites. The most fundamental dialectic in DBT is acceptance and change: accepting yourself and your circumstances exactly as they are, while simultaneously working toward meaningful change in your life. This balance is at the heart of every skill taught in DBT.

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Mindfulness

Mindfulness is the foundation of all DBT skills. It is the practice of intentionally paying attention to the present moment without judgment. In DBT, mindfulness skills help you observe your thoughts and feelings without being controlled by them. You learn to participate fully in your life while maintaining awareness - the "what" skills of observing, describing, and participating, and the "how" skills of being nonjudgmental, staying focused, and being effective.

Distress Tolerance

Life is full of crises and painful situations we cannot immediately change. Distress Tolerance skills help you survive these moments without making them worse. Skills include TIPP (Temperature, Intense exercise, Paced breathing, Paired muscle relaxation), ACCEPTS (distraction strategies), self-soothe with the five senses, and radical acceptance - the full acknowledgment of reality as it is, not as you wish it were.

Emotion Regulation

Many people struggle not because they feel emotions, but because they feel them intensely and don't know what to do with them. Emotion Regulation skills teach you to understand and name emotions, reduce vulnerability to emotional mind, increase positive emotions, and change unwanted emotions through opposite action. You'll also learn to check the facts before reacting and to problem-solve situations contributing to emotional suffering.

Interpersonal Effectiveness

Relationships are one of the most common sources of both joy and pain. Interpersonal Effectiveness skills help you ask for what you need, say no to what you don't want, maintain self-respect, and keep relationships healthy - all at the same time. Core skills include DEAR MAN (for getting what you want), GIVE (for keeping the relationship), and FAST (for maintaining self-respect in interactions).

Who Benefits from DBT?

DBT has been shown in research to be effective for people experiencing borderline personality disorder, chronic suicidal ideation, self-harm behaviors, severe depression, anxiety disorders, PTSD, substance use disorders, eating disorders, and anger and impulse control problems.

At the Katy DBT Center, we offer DBT for both adolescents and adults. Our programs are led by DBT-Linehan Board of Certification certified clinicians with over 15 years of experience delivering adherent DBT.

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What to Expect

Standard DBT includes individual therapy (weekly, one hour), skills group (weekly, two hours), phone coaching (brief calls between sessions for crisis support), and therapist consultation team (so your clinician stays sharp). At the Katy DBT Center, we offer comprehensive adherent DBT as well as RO-DBT for disorders of over-control.

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DBT is an evidence-based, modern behavioral therapy that helps people who feel overwhelmed by intense emotions, who experience strained relationships, and who seek an improved quality of life.

The purpose of the program is to:

Identify problem behaviors that cause distress to you and your loved ones
Identify the antecedents to such problem behaviors that make them difficult to control or avoid.
Identify the consequences that reinforce such behaviors and make them difficult to stop.
Link antecedents, behaviors and consequences.
Provide skills, solutions and strategies to replace all these links with more effective behaviors and move toward a life worth living.

What is meant by “more effective behaviors”?

The easy part is telling yourself to “stop doing it,” the hard part is knowing what to do instead. DBT teaches what to do instead (skills acquisition). You will practice using skills and be able to use skills in more and more complex and varied situations (skills generalization).

DBT Skills

There are four modules of skills taught in DBT:

Mindfulness – Non-judgmental awareness of the present moment.
Distress Tolerance – Getting through an emotional crisis without making things worse.
Emotion Regulation – Decreasing the intensity and duration of unwanted emotions.
Interpersonal Effectiveness – Getting one’s needs met in relationships without damaging one’s self-esteem, and without damaging the relationship.

To schedule an initial assessment, please call or text 346-213-2711 or visit the contact page.

Who does DBT help?

Quite simply, everyone. But DBT is known to be very effective for those struggling with very intense emotions—whether you have a diagnosis or not. Research shows that DBT has also been used successfully to treat people experiencing anxiety, depression, bulimia, binge eating, bipolar disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and substance abuse.

DBT therapists specialize in Cluster B and Cluster C personality disorders, and mood disorders. Common diagnoses treated with DBT include the following mood disorders: depressions, dysthymia, bipolar, cyclothymic, and disruptive mood dysregulartion. Personality disorders include borderline (BPD), obsessive-compulsive (OCPD), anti-social , historionic, narcissistic, avoidant, and dependent.

About DBT