Tips From Dialectical Behavior Therapy can help clients in rapid decline
By Faye Beard
In her powerful memoir Building a Life Worth Living, Marsha M. Linehan takes readers on her journey from being a suicidal teenager to a noted psychologist. Linehan created the ground-breaking Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), which was originally developed to treat Borderline Personality Disorder. Today, experts say the DBT method is used to treat a broad range of mental health challenges from anger management to Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.
According to the Mayo Clinic, “DBT uses a skills-based approach to teach you how to manage your emotions, handle distress, and understand relationships better.”
Dr. Courtney Tracy, Ph.D., MSW, has found one of DBT’s core skills, Distress Tolerance, to be effective when her clients are spiraling out of control. “Spiraling can start with one stressful thought or feeling, and then suddenly you’re overwhelmed, panicking, or emotionally shutting down,” she said. “It’s like losing your grip on stability.”
The condition may present in different ways. “For some people, spiraling looks like overthinking, pacing, or obsessively trying to fix things,” Dr. Tracy said. “For others, it shows up as crying, withdrawing from everyone, having physical symptoms like a racing heart or nausea, or going completely numb.”
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If left unaddressed, situations can quickly become dangerous, explained Dr. Tracy, who uses DBT to treat her clients who are diagnosed with addiction, anxiety, and depression, in addition to Post-Traumatic Stress and Borderline Personality disorders. The author of Your Unconscious Is Showing shares these T.I.P.P.s to ease emotional overload and bring spiraling to a full stop.
Temperature: Make yourself cold. Splash cold water on your face. Use Ice. Stick your head in the freezer for 30 seconds. It shocks your nervous system out of panic.
Intense exercise: Do jumping jacks. Run up and down the stairs. Do push-ups. It burns off the adrenaline and cortisol running through your body.
Paced breathing: Breathe in four seconds. Hold four seconds. Breathe out for six seconds. When you can engage in slow breathing, it’s less likely that you can find yourself in a dangerous situation. That’s what your brain will think.
Paired muscle relaxation: Tense up your muscles all at once or tense up a certain muscle. Then release. It allows you to say, ‘I’m the one tensing up; it’s not the situation making me tense up.’
This approach focuses on the body, not the mind. “It interrupts the physiological part of your spiral first. “Stop trying to control your thoughts when it’s your body that is on fire,” Dr. Tracy said. “Put the fire out first and then go back to thinking.”
Entrepreneur Gajan Retnasaba, was on his own journey with DBT when he launched DialecticalBehaviorTherapy.com to offer free lessons and exercises to improve emotional regulation, navigate challenging situations, and build healthy relationships. Browsers can learn more about TIPP, access worksheets, listen to a virtual coach, and read frequently asked questions.
“If you feel a strong wave coming all over you and you don’t know how to deal with it, this technique will help you,” it states in the lesson’s introduction. It goes on to describe the technique as a first-line intervention during times of crises or extreme distress that can help prevent impulsive or harmful behaviors.
“Even if you don’t have a diagnosed mental illness, DBT can be a valuable tool for personal growth and change,” according to the website. “It can help you develop healthy coping mechanisms, improve your relationships, and live a more fulfilling life.”
Faye Beard is a freelance journalist based in New York City.
