Building a Life Worth Living by Marsha M. Linehan

Author:Marsha M. Linehan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2020-01-06T16:00:00+00:00

Source of DBT Skills

I arrived at some of the skills through drawing on my own life experiences. But I came to most of them by combing through all the very best behavior therapy manuals I could lay my hands on. I then asked, “Okay, what does the therapist ask the client to do in this therapy?” I’d then reframe it as a DBT skill, until I had a long list of them—dozens and dozens, in fact. No one had done that before DBT.

This should give you a sense of the overall picture of DBT. To repeat, DBT is a very pragmatic, down-to-earth therapy, quite unlike traditional psychotherapy. It is, literally, a program of self-improvement.

I’ll finish this chapter with a typical observation about the power of DBT that I often hear from people who have experienced it:

Doing DBT, learning the skills and so on, it took me from being a victim of my depression to being more of a choice maker. Before I had DBT, if something bad happened at work, I would feel horrible, more horrible than the average person, emotionally flogging myself: “You are a bad, bad person.” I would react to all of that and make myself depressed, blaming myself for not being good enough somehow, getting engaged in all of that, which can be draining. That would make me panic and blow it out of proportion. Now, when something bad happens to me—at work, with friends, anything—I can slow down and decide whether I need to react like that. Now I just exist with the anxiety and it goes away. Now I know I am a good person, I do have good qualities, and I do have control over what my mind can do. I am not as much of a victim.

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