Are you a therapist who wants the experience of being in a DBT skills group yourself? Are you curious about how the skills can help YOU? Marielle and Ed are starting a new skills group designed specifically for therapists to learn the skills together in a supportive online environment. We are excited to offer this group. For more information and to…

What DBT skill do you use when your emotion fits the facts? One option is to work on changing the facts. The skill of Problem Solving offers a structured framework to help you change situations that cause painful emotions. Problem Solving begins, like many of the Emotion Regulation skills in DBT, by naming your emotion. Next, identify your goal in …

Today’s episode discusses the DBT skill of Willingness. Willingness is one of the reality acceptance skills that we teach in Distress Tolerance. This skill can help you let go of fighting what is so you can do what’s needed in each situation - without dragging your feet or holding onto a grudge. One way to understand Willingness is to think of its …

Once you have grasp of the DEAR MAN skill, you might find yourself getting stuck when you try to use it in difficult interactions. Maybe the other person pushes back, tries to change the subject, or refuses to engage fairly. While we can’t force anyone to do anything, we can continue to use our skills to stay as effective as possible during heated …

Once you have a grasp of the change-oriented skills in DBT (such as Check the Facts, Opposite Action, and Problem Solving) it can be hard to figure out which one to use. This episode walks you through deciding if and when to act on an unwanted emotion. For full show notes, visit our website: https://bayareadbtcc.com/podcast DBT Skills Discussed Che…

Shame is one of the most painful emotions we can experience. This episode explores what shame is, when the emotion is useful (and when it’s not), and skills to help you cope when shame threatens to overwhelm you. Shame is a social emotion that motivates us to repair transgressions that might result in us being excluded from a group we want (or need…

Today’s episode focuses on the emotion of fear. At its most fundamental, fear keeps us safe. It guides us to fight, flee, or freeze in the face of danger. Often, though, fear can be chronic, manifesting as anxiety, worry, or tension even when we are safe. This episode helps you identify fear in all its manifestations and provides tools to help you …

In this episode, Marielle and Ed discuss the emotion of anger. In its most useful form, anger moves us to protect and defend ourselves and those we care about. Many people, though, find anger frightening because they have witnessed destructive expressions of anger such as emotional or physical violence. This episode unpacks the emotion of anger so …

When we find ourselves getting caught in extremes, the DBT skill called Walking the Middle Path helps us re-calibrate. Use this skill when you notice you are caught in binary thinking to find a way to move towards center. This episode explores common opposites: Reasonable Mind vs. Emotion Mind Doing Mind vs. Being Mind Intense Desire of the Moment …

This episode is an overview of the core Interpersonal Effectiveness skills in DBT, focusing on clarifying objectives, DEAR MAN, GIVE, and FAST. There are a lot of acronyms in the Interpersonal Effectiveness module! Memorizing what each letter of the acronym stands for, especially DEAR MAN, can help you access the skill when you most need it. The be…

In Part 2 of How to Assert Yourself, Marielle and Ed discuss common interpersonal pitfalls in speaking up for yourself in relationships. Do you swallow your needs and then find they all come out in a rush of words and anger? Vacillating between staying silent and then blowing up is common and hurts both your relationships and your self-respect. Thi…

Do you find it hard to speak up for yourself in relationships? If so, this 2-part series on how to assert yourself may help you understand why it can feel so hard to ask for things or say no in different types of relationships. In order to be able to assert yourself, you first need to know what you want and don’t want. Sometimes this is harder that…

In this episode, Marielle and Ed answer a listener's question about fears of abandonment when conflict arises in relationships. These fears go straight to the heart of old wounds for many people. Often, worry that conflict will destroy a relationship is rooted in our earliest relationships with our caregivers. If that early care was inconsistent, a…

This episode is the 2nd part of an overview of the Emotion Regulation skills in DBT, focusing on skills that can help you be in Emotion Mind less often. You can find part 1 here. The skills discussed in this episode may not have an immediate impact on how you’re feeling, but regular application of these skills over time builds emotional resilience …

The Emotion Regulation skills in DBT offer lots of ways to help you identify and respond to emotions. Some of the Emotion Regulation skills focus on change, while others focus on acceptance. This toggling back and forth between acceptance and change is the primary dialectic we are continually balancing in DBT. This episode provides an overview of t…

This episode explores how to apply mindfulness skills to help you manage distressing thoughts using the DBT skill called Mindfulness of Current Thoughts. Thoughts can cause a lot of suffering. Often, thoughts about events are based on assumptions, judgments, or interpretations rather than on facts. The core of this skill is to notice thoughts as ju…

Today, Marielle interviews Elle Michel, LMFT, a therapist in Los Angeles who specializes in treating complex trauma. Elle uses a combination of modalities to treat trauma, including DBT, Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), and Brainspotting. This episode focuses on describing what happens in the nervous system after a traumatic ev…