Interventions

Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT).

CBT is a form of psychological treatment that has been demonstrated to be effective for a range of problems including depression, anxiety disorders, alcohol and drug use problems, marital problems, eating disorders, and severe mental illness.

CBT treatment usually involves efforts to change thinking patterns. These strategies might include:

• Learning to recognize one’s distortions in thinking that are creating problems, and then to reevaluate them in light of reality.

• Gaining a better understanding of the behavior and motivation of others.

• Using problem-solving skills to cope with difficult situations.

• Learning to develop a greater sense of confidence in one’s own abilities.

CBT treatment also usually involves efforts to change behavioral patterns. These strategies might include:

• Facing one’s fears instead of avoiding them.

• Using role playing to prepare for potentially problematic interactions with others.

• Learning to calm one’s mind and relax one’s body.

CBT places an emphasis on helping individuals learn to be their own therapists. Through exercises in the session as well as “homework” exercises outside of sessions, clients are helped to develop coping skills, whereby they can learn to change their own thinking, problematic emotions, and behavior.

Source: APA Div. 12 (Society of Clinical Psychology).

Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT).

DBT relies on a theory of dialectics, or set of opposing truths, to resolve contradictory truths and experiences that occur in individuals’ lives. Individuals struggling with unstable emotions often perceive life events in “black and white” and may switch between extreme perceptions, or thoughts, and behaviors. For example, they may sometimes believe that they should be able to manage life challenges on their own without any support or assistance, but then quickly go to an opposite extreme of feeling completely helpless and unable to handle challenges or even ask for help.  DBT looks for a synthesis, or mixture of the contradictory positions that satisfies both.  In this example, the synthesis might be to develop skills in asking for help, or to accept help in order to become more independent. The most basic dialectic, or set of opposing truths, in DBT is Acceptance and Change: That we must accept ourselves as we are and the reality around us (acceptance: using mindfulness and reality acceptance skills) in order to enact new and more effective ways of being in the present (change: using crisis survival, emotion regulation, and interpersonal effectiveness skills) in order to create a life worth living.