Dialectical behaviour therapy, commonly abbreviated to DBT, was first developed by Marsha Linehan and is widely recognised as forming the cornerstone of treatment for borderline personality disorder (BPD) as it is specifically aimed at helping sufferers of this often complex, difficult-to-treat condition.
This therapeutic approach typically involves the individual affected by BPD learning a valuable set of skills, which include:
- Emotion regulation skills
- Distress tolerance skills
- Interpersonal effectiveness skills
- Mindfulness skills
Emotion Regulation Skills To Help BPD Sufferers
As the ability to control one’s emotions has important implications for both the physical and mental well-being, emotion regulation is an essential skill for sufferers of BPD. Those who do not suffer from BPD are usually able to express emotions which are appropriate both in terms of nature and time.
Training in emotional regulation involves learning various behavioural and cognitive strategies aimed at both reducing unhelpful emotional responses and dysfunctional behaviours. This is achieved through teaching BPD sufferers how to identify and describe emotions, avoid negative/unhealthy emotions as well as increase positive types of emotions.
Distress Tolerance Skills To Help BPD Sufferers
This approach is also recognised as being helpful in the treatment of other mental health conditions such as anorexia/bulimia nervosa and anxiety-related disorders such as obsessive compulsive disorder. Distress tolerance focuses on learning skills designed to help BPD sufferers cope better with crises without reverting to destructive, impulsive behaviours.
Key distress tolerance skills include learning impulse control and a variety of self-soothing techniques to increase available coping strategies.
Interpersonal Effectiveness Skills To Help BPD Sufferers
This approach to helping those affected by BPD involves learning a range of assertiveness-based skills aimed at helping sufferers to maintain important relationships with others and most significantly one’s self-respect in addition to meeting one’s goals/objectives in life.
Key skills required to maintain health relationships involve learning to see things from another’s point of view and an ability to maintain a close relationship with another person, while also maintaining autonomy.
Mindfulness Skills For BPD Sufferers
Mindfulness is generally regarded as a fantastic means of learning to stay in the present; this practice can also enabling one to stop racing thoughts from impacting upon one’s mental and emotional well-being. Skills learnt within mindfulness may include the following: learning to observe while suspending judgment, focusing awareness and how to be more effective by learning to focus on what works and ignoring the rest.
As highlighted above, dialectical behavior behaviour is very effective in terms of helping BPD patients move forward as it contains key groups of skills which provide insight and practical support for coping with associated symptoms. For further information on both BPD and dialectical behaviour therapy contact a family doctor and request a referral to a mental health specialist.