DBT (or Dialectical Behavior Therapy) may sound intimidating, but it's really just teaching a set of skills to help people manage stress better.
DBT includes four sets of behavioral skills:
- Mindfulness: the practice of being fully aware and present in this one moment
- Distress Tolerance: how to tolerate pain in difficult situations, not change it
- Interpersonal Effectiveness: how to ask for what you want and say no while maintaining self-respect and relationships with others
- Emotion Regulation: how to change emotions that you want to change
Not only is DBT being used more and more often to help people with mental illnesses, it's something that everyone can use.
There are several options for DBT in our community.
The Human Development Center (HDC) offers DBT, and so does the Amberwing Center.
And this page offers a sampling of DBT smart phone apps available so you have the information right where - and when - you need it.
Special mental health reporting this week on "Change Your Mind: Living With Mental Illness" is provided by KUMD, in partnership with the Human Development Center, Miller-Dwan Foundation and the St. Luke's Foundation.
A note about the artwork:
Allie Brosh's humorous, autobiographical blog, Hyperbole and a Half, has a huge following. She writes and illustrates stories about, among other things, her struggles with crippling depression. Her book, Hyperbole and a Half, that collects her blog posts as well as new illustrated stories.
Work by Allie Brosh is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Based on a work at hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com.
The Mental Health Week on KUMD was made possible in part by the Human Development Center, Miller-Dwan Foundation and the St. Luke’s Foundation.
