Transform Your Life With Dialectical Behavior Therapy in Denver, CO

"You can't stop the waves but you can learn how to surf." -Jon Kabat Zinn-

Do you feel your mind is being pulled in a hundred different directions at once? Do you have a hard time handling some of your emotions, and does this cause any problems in your relationships?

Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) offers individuals like you across the Denver, Colorado, area comprehensive skills to manage painful memories and emotions and decrease conflicts in their relationships. 

What Are the Four Skills in DBT?

1. Mindfulness

Mindfulness helps individuals learn to be present in the current moment. By accepting your current circumstances, you can then minimize your struggles, take charge of your life, and boost your overall well-being.

2. Distress tolerance

Most people try and keep themselves safe from all negative emotions. Distress tolerance is geared toward increasing a person’s tolerance of negative emotions. It enables individuals to navigate highly stressful situations without making them worse. Using these skills, individuals can then return to a "baseline" state with a clear, calm, composed mind to tackle the challenges ahead. 

3. Emotion regulation

Emotion regulation skills focus on strategies to manage intense emotions. When intense emotions cause big reactions they can lead to problems in a person’s emotional and relational lives. Emotion regulation skills help people learn to respond effectively, rather than react, to their emotions. Once these skills are learned, individuals can reduce the amount of distress caused by high emotions and manage situations from a more stable, resilient state of mind. 

4. Interpersonal effectiveness

Interpersonal effectiveness is focused on helping individuals identify their communication style and become more mindful about the ways they communicate. The techniques learned allow an individual to communicate with others in a confident, assertive way that maintains self-respect and strengthens relationships.

How Does it Work Exactly?

Many of us live our daily lives with a constant stream of emotions, positive and negative, right under our awareness. These emotions affect how we feel about ourselves and how we interact with other people, including friends, romantic partners, and family members. Negative emotions, like fear and shame, are the ones that tend to really get our attention.

DBT essentially works with individuals to help them find ways to manage their negative emotions so they can feel balanced, less reactive, and able to interact effectively and successfully. The message at the heart of DBT is acceptance and change.

Whether it’s addressing self-destructive behaviors, improving interpersonal relationships, or managing stress and anxiety, DBT equips individuals with proven strategies and tools to navigate these and other emotional challenges, as well as:

· Understand feelings and ways to accept them

· Cope with difficult situations and manage the constant flux of feelings

· Make positive, measurable changes that lead to healthier, happier outcomes

When Is DBT Used and What Can You Expect?

While dialectical behavioral therapy was initially developed to treat those with borderline personality disorder, research has since shown that DBT can successfully treat people with depression, bipolar disorder, PTSD, eating disorders, and substance abuse.

DBT treatment usually consists of a combination of DBT skills groups and individual therapy sessions. The individual therapy sessions allow you to have one-on-one contact with a trained therapist who will help you apply DBT skills to your daily life, address any obstacles that may arise, and keep you motivated. The DBT skills group interactions will help you practice skills with others and offer mutual support. I offer individual DBT therapy and can refer you to a trusted practice for DBT groups.

Looking for a DBT Therapist? Contact Dr. Pamela Brody, Ph.D.

If you or someone you know in the Denver, CO, area may benefit from dialectical behavioral therapy, please get in touch with me. I would be happy to discuss how I can help teach the skills necessary to navigate emotions, relationships, and life situations more easily. Get started today by scheduling an appointment. Your next chapter is waiting for you!