DBT and Mindfulness

Dialectical Behavior Therapy and Mindfulness are important modalities that I use in my work with clients. These are modalities that can be focused on entirely in therapy or, more often, they are integrated into the individual therapy that I provide. Below are short descriptions of them but feel free to research beyond my website to find more information if you are interested in doing this work together.

Dialectical Behavior Therapy, or DBT, is a skills based treatment that can be helpful with for people who struggle with strong emotions and behaviors that can feel out of control at times. DBT can be done either in individual therapy or in group therapy and focuses on learning skills in four different areas: Mindfulness, Distress Tolerance, Emotion Regulation and Interpersonal Effectiveness. These different areas of skill building can help bring more awareness, control and choice into how we interact with our emotions, our behaviors and our relationships. I have run DBT groups for the last 10 years and love to integrate this modality into clients’ therapy when useful.

Mindfulness is a major part of DBT but is also a component that I bring into ongoing individual therapy as well. I believe that awareness of the present and being able to find ways of grounding ourselves in the moment can create significant relief from anxiety, depression, emotional urges and behaviors. I often work with clients on gaining acceptance of our emotions instead of trying to find ways of pushing them away. Through acceptance, we can find ways of moving through those emotions so that our mind and body can process them.

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