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Applying Interventions to Dialectical Behavior Therapy

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Behavioral Interventions Used in Dialectical Behavior Therapy

Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) uses affective and cognitive interventions, but not because emotional catharsis or insight is the goal; rather, DBT is founded on the premise that once the client trusts the therapist adequately and feels validated and understood by the therapist, the real goal of developing life skills that will offer new and healthier options for the client becomes evident. Thus, behavioral change is the crux of DBT, and the word skills is used throughout the DBT literature to describe the desired outcome of the therapy (Dimeff & Koerner, 2007; Miller, Rathus, & Linehan, 2007).

For programs that have invested in DBT as their primary delivery method, group work is often the context for skill development. Therefore, the portions of this chapter that discuss role-play, behavioral rehearsal, and the receiving of feedback are descriptive of the interventions used by DBT therapists in their work. Of course, counselors who align themselves with DBT tenets can use these same behavioral interventions within individual counseling. In group work or individual counseling, once the stage of skill development has been reached in DBT, all of the interventions described in this chapter could conceivably be used. Each DBT therapist develops his or her preferred interventions for behavioral change, and the DBT literature describes the use of a host of such interventions across different clinical populations. The content of this chapter can serve as a primer for developing one’s own repertoire.