Our therapists offer DBT / dialectical behavior therapy in Chesapeake, VA

My go-to approach for helping people in dialectical behavior therapy is for them to balance their efforts to accept and change whatever is causing them anxiety and/or depression. I find the best benefit in explaining and teaching mindfulness and distress tolerance skills because with understanding comes action and change.

I teach the following tools in dialectical behavior therapy:

• Mindfulness skills: Paying attention to your experiences in the here and now, resulting in living in the moment.
• Emotion regulation skills: Better understanding your emotions, reducing vulnerability to negative emotions, and learning strategies to manage, accept, and/or change them.
• Interpersonal effectiveness skills: Identifying and setting goals, needs, and wants within relationships.
• Distress tolerance skills: Learning to tolerate and manage overwhelming emotions, thoughts, and situations and using coping/calming methods to accept yourself, your situation, and your experiences.

I know a client is making meaningful progress in dialectical behavior therapy when they are using the skills taught in therapy in their life. For example, accepting you are anxious and using your self-talk, self-love, and so forth to experience your feelings rather than getting busy to avoid them.

Clients can supplement their time in dialectical behavior therapy by practicing mindfulness through apps like Calm, taking a walk in nature to be in the moment, and hugging themselves.

To prepare for their first dialectical behavior therapy session, an individual can be open to sharing themselves.