Distress Tolerance & Emotion Regulation

DT & ER are two of the four major skill sets taught by Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT).

“Dialectical behavior therapy distress tolerance skills address the tendency of some individuals to experience negative emotions as overwhelming and unbearable. People with a low tolerance for distress can become overwhelmed at relatively mild levels of stress, and may react with negative behaviors. Many traditional treatment approaches focus on avoiding painful situations, but in the distress tolerance module of DBT, clients learn that there will be times when pain is unavoidable and the best course is to learn to accept and tolerate distress.”

See the rest of the article at http://www.goodtherapy.org/blog/distress-tolerance-dialectical-behavior-therapy-0117134.

“Our emotions can frequently be very intense and labile, which means they change often. Our emotions often drive our behavior. A lot of our behavior focuses around finding ways to get our emotions validated or to get rid of the pain in some way. Because of this, learning to regulate emotions is a central part of DBT. This does not mean that the emotions are invalid, and it does not mean that we are trying to get rid of them. They are valid and important. But because our emotions cause us so much pain and often keep us feeling out of control, we are going to first learn some things about our emotions and where they come from, and then we will learn some techniques about managing our emotions, reducing our vulnerability to negative emotions, learning to experience some positive emotions, and learning to reduce our emotional suffering.”

See the rest of the article at http://dbtselfhelp.com/html/overview2.html.

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