Dialectical behavior therapy, developed by Marsha Linehan (1993a, 1993b), is extraordinarily effective at helping people manage overwhelming emotions. Research shows that dialectical behavior therapy strengthens a person’s ability to handle distress without losing control or acting destructively.
A lot of people struggle with overwhelming emotions. It’s as if the knob is turned to maximum volume on much of what they feel. When they get angry or sad or scared, it shows up as a big, powerful wave that can sweep them off their feet.
If you’ve faced overwhelming emotions in your life, you know what we’re talking about. There are days when your feelings hit you with the force of a tsunami. And when that happens, it makes you—understandably—afraid to feel things because you don’t want to get swept away by your emotions. The trouble is, the more you try to suppress or put a lid on your emotions, the more overwhelming they can get. We’ll talk about that in chapters 6 and 7 on emotional regulation. What’s important to know right now is that trying to stop your feelings doesn’t work.
There’s a fair amount of research to suggest that the likelihood of developing intense, overwhelming emotions may be hardwired from birth. But it can also be greatly affected by trauma or neglect during childhood. Trauma at critical points in our development can literally alter our brain structure in ways that make us more vulnerable to intense, negative emotions. However, the fact that a propensity to intense emotions is often rooted in genetics or trauma doesn’t mean the problem can’t be overcome. Thousands of people have used the skills you’ll learn in this book to achieve better emotional control. They have changed their lives—and you can too.
So what are these skills, and how will they help you? Dialectical behavior therapy teaches four critically important skills that can both reduce the size of emotional waves and help you keep your balance when those emotions overwhelm you.
1. Distress tolerance will help you cope better with painful events by building up your resiliency and giving you new ways to soften the effects of upsetting circumstances.
2. Mindfulness will help you experience more fully the present moment while focusing less on painful experiences from the past or frightening possibilities in the future. Mindfulness will also give you tools to overcome habitual, negative judgments about yourself and others.
3. Emotion regulation skills help you to recognize more clearly what you feel and then to observe each emotion without getting overwhelmed by it. The goal is to modulate your feelings without behaving in reactive, destructive ways.
4. Interpersonal effectiveness gives you new tools to express your beliefs and needs, set limits, and negotiate solutions to problems—all while protecting your relationships and treating others with respect.
This book is structured to make learning easier. Each of the key skills is covered in two chapters—basic and advanced—except mindfulness, which has a third, more advanced chapter. The basic skills chapters teach necessary concepts, identify the components of the new skill, and lead you through initial steps for acquiring the skill. The advanced skills chapters take you through the remaining components of the skill, building level by level. There will be examples to make each step clear as well as assessments, exercises, and worksheets to help you practice each thing you learn. Then in the final chapter, Putting It All Together, you’ll learn how to integrate all those skills, in order to make them a regular part of your life.
The Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills Workbook is written to make learning easy. The hard part will be making the commitment to do the exercises and put your new skills into practice. Nothing will change by just reading. The words on these pages will have no impact on your life unless you implement—behaviorally—the new techniques and strategies you will learn here. So now is a good time to think about why you are reading this book and what you want to change. Right here, on this page, write down three ways you currently react to your emotions that you want to change. In other words, what three things do you do when upset or overwhelmed that are damaging—and that you are committed to replace with better ways to cope?
1. ___________
2. ___________
3. ___________
Who This Book Is For
There are two intended audiences for The Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills Workbook. The first is people who are in dialectical behavior therapy (either group or individual) and need a workbook to help learn the four key skills. We also wrote this book so it could be used independently by anyone who struggles with overwhelming feelings. All the tools are here to achieve significant changes in your ability to control emotion. With that said, if you are reading this workbook on your own and are having a hard time implementing the new skills, we strongly recommend seeking the services of a qualified dialectical behavior therapist.
There Is Hope
Life is hard. You already know that. But you are not stuck or helpless in your struggle with your emotions. You can expect, if you really do the work to implement these skills, that how you react to feelings will change. That’s because—regardless of genetics or early pain—the key skills you’ll learn here can affect the outcome of every conflict and every upset and can literally alter the course of your relationships. There is every reason to hope. All you have to do is turn the page and begin. Then keep working at it.