Dialectical behaviour therapy (DBT) was originally developed by an American psychologist named Marsha Linehan. It is based on Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), but has been adapted to meet the particular needs of people who experience emotions very intensely.
The goal of DBT is to help you learn to manage your difficult emotions by letting yourself experience, recognise and accept them. Then as you learn to accept and regulate your emotions, you also become more able to change your harmful behaviour. To help you achieve this, DBT therapists use a balance of acceptance and change techniques.
Acceptance techniques focus on understanding yourself as a person, and making sense of why you might do things like self-harm or abuse drugs. A DBT therapist might suggest that this behaviour may have been the only way you have learned to deal with the intense emotions you feel – so even though it’s damaging to you in the long-term, and might be very alarming to other people, your behaviour actually makes sense.
DBT therapists use change techniques to encourage you to change your behaviour and learn more effective ways of dealing with your distress. They encourage you to replace behaviours that are harmful to you with behaviours that can help you move forward with your life. For example, you can learn how you can distract yourself from difficult emotions during crises, by engaging in activities, instead of self-harming. You can also start challenging your unhelpful thoughts and develop a more balanced way of looking at things.
DBT is effective for problems such as depression, feelings of hopelessness, eating disorders and self harm.