Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) is a treatment approach which has been found to be effective with adults and adolescents who experience intense emotional distress and who attempt to manage this distress by avoiding or carrying out impulsive behaviours. The therapy involves balancing validation of an individual’s emotional experiences (and attempts to manage their emotional experience) with helping an individual to change their thinking, behaviour and emotional patterns.
Adolescents are taught to use and refine the following skills:
- Emotion regulation skills – to develop and maintain emotional balance and reduce vulnerability to intense emotionality
- Distress tolerance skills – to enable an adolescent to tolerate painful emotion without avoidance or use of impulsive behaviours and without making a crisis situation worse
- Mindfulness skills – to help adolescents bring non-judgmental awareness to the present moment and choose what to focus on and how to do it effectively
- Interpersonal skills – to help adolescents nurture and manage conflict in relationships in a way which balances respect for oneself but also others
In parallel with adolescents learning the above skills, parents are also taught ways in which to support their adolescent in using the skills in a way which is empathic and accepting.
