Approach: DBT
Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) teaches practical skills for coping with intense emotions, distress and impulsive urges. It's built on two ideas that are true at the same time: you're doing the best you can, and something still needs to change. You can start DBT-informed therapy at our Coral Gables, Coconut Grove or Manhattan office, or online if you're located in Florida or New York.
The Skills
We offer DBT-informed individual therapy, which brings DBT skills and ideas into one-to-one sessions. A full, adherent DBT program also includes a weekly skills group, phone coaching between sessions and a consultation team for the therapist, and we don't offer that full program. If your situation calls for it, your therapist will tell you and help you look for one.
DBT skills can help if your emotions come on quickly and feel overwhelming, or if your relationships swing between closeness and conflict. They're also useful if you tend to act on urges that make sense in the moment and cause problems later. We draw on them, too, when working with substance use, eating disorders and anxiety that feels especially intense.
More About DBT-Informed Therapy
Once you've tried a skill in a real situation, we look back together at how it went, including anything that got in the way. That review matters as much as learning the skill, because a new skill often doesn't work the first time for practical reasons that can be fixed.
Some people find diary cards or simple tracking useful. We'll keep using them while they help and set them aside when they don't.
One idea runs through all four DBT skill areas: the difference between acting from emotion mind, from reasonable mind or from wise mind, which draws on both feeling and reason. Much of DBT is learning to find that middle ground when your feelings are at their strongest.
