I’ve been reading the sources that have come through a Google search but I haven’t been able to understand the difference. From what I understand DBT is a subset of CBT and it has been shown to work with people who have borderline personality disorder.
They both seem to focus on changing patterns of thought,.but I don’t understand how the techniques are different.
Any help?
Free bump.
DBT is a form of CBT, although in practice the terms are often used interchangeably.
From Wikipedia: “DBT combines standard cognitive-behavioral techniques for emotion regulation and reality-testing with concepts of distress tolerance, acceptance, and mindful awareness largely derived from Buddhist meditative practice.”
The idea is that standard CBT is unsuccessful because of the adversarial dynamic that develops between therapists and patients – BPD patients have a strained relationship with reality, and resent being told that their perceptions are invalid. DBT strives to validate the patient’s perceptions and experiences, nonviolently encouraging the patient to accept that the dysfunction is having dire consequences, and to adopt more successful, better adapted, interpretations and responses to stressful conditions and events. Once the patient has committed to this work, a “toolkit” of successful strategies can be developed, and the patient can practice coping skills and the rest of CBT’s techniques without the usual level of rebellion.
It is not correct to say that the terms are used interchangeably. Dialectic Behavior Therapy is quite specifically used for treatment of Borderline Personality Disorder. It would be quite confusing to say that someone was receiving DBT for treatment of a phobia or conduct disorder.
DBT is based in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, but people with borderline personality disorder present so many specific and intensive challenges around interpersonal issues that involve the therapist (idealization and devaluation), suicidal threats and behaviors in response to perceived abandonment, and so on, that DBT has specific components developed to address them.
That is true, but when someone dealing with borderline personality disorder says CBT, they almost always mean the DBT variety. It’s kinda the opposite of synecdoche.
And I was just researching DBT last night for my sister, who is training to be a therapist. Whoa, are there a bunch of hoops to go through to get around idealization and devaluation (mostly the latter). You do not want your client to hate you, or you can’t get anything done.
But there’s also some parts that are specific–learning to deal with bad feelings rather than trying to stop them. While CBT has that sometimes, it used almost 100% of the time in DBT.
I have been a patient of both forms for over 15 yrs. I’m sorry I cant type much due to tremors, but you can look in WikiDoMents for the complEte DBT workbook used throughout the country.
With Dialectical after $50 large I learned not to hate my father.
I know someone who has been through DBT a few times and the biggest advantage is that it helps patients to hear what is going on inside their own heads as opposed to always responding to events on a purely instinctive basis. This helps to short-circuit learned, maladaptive behaviors by recognizing them for what they are and substituting behaviors that are consciously chosen rather simply being the default response.
BIG error:smack::smack::smack:
With dynamic therapy (dreams, couch-lying,stream of consciousness, etc. I spent $50 large not to hate my father.
Does it involve being wrapped in rubber?
No, wait, that would be Dielectrical Therapy.
From my perspective of having completed two programs that use DBT, the difference is that DBT allowed me to embrace the ability to Radically Accept that I can feel two different, even opposite, emotions at the same time. One feeling does not negate or precede the other. This is referred to as the Dialectical.
DBT teaches skills in four domains: Core Mindfulness, Interpersonal Effectiveness, Emotion Regulation, and Distress Tolerance. In each of these four modules, there are specific skills that are taught. It is the client’s (patient’s) job to put these skills in practice in all areas of his/her daily lives. Little detail about one’s personal life is usually shared in these groups. Instead, emotions are identified and often, ranked but the majority of remaining time is spent on how the client’s used specific skills that they learned.
Also the target audience for DBT has been recently expanded to include trauma survivor’s, recovering addicts, and those suffering from eating disorders, particularly binge eating and bulimia.
I find that it has empowered me. In DBT, the goal is to achieve Wise Mind - loosely translated as where the emotional (feeling) mind meets the intellectual (reasoning) mind.
Instead of trying to change my thinking, it helped me to embrace all my thoughts, without judgment (Nonjudgmental Stance in DBT). This is where I think DBT differs from CBT. Hope this helps.
Meremotall above is a superb.summary.
This is speaking as a patient undergoing CBT for moderate depression, not as anyone with any kind of psychological training of any kind, so take it with a grain of salt.
CBT seems to be focused on raising awareness of your own thoughts and their genesis within your noggin, and recognizing why these thoughts may not be entirely valid or reasonable, and changing the way you think to not think along those lines.
The crux of it to me seems to be the ability to interrupt what you’re thinking and think about those thoughts, and analyze them.
In other words, you’re feeling depressed, and you’re under a lot of stress. You learn to recognize what the stressors are- you’re worried that you’ll fail or won’t perform as well as you should. You also learn to recognize that maybe you’re not really in as much danger as you thought of failing. You also realize that you feel that worry about failing because you were always told about how well you should do as a kid or young adult, and you feel like you have to live up to it.
Once you realize all these things consciously, you can start interrupting those thoughts that make you get depressed, and redefine how you think about them.
In some part, CBT also concentrates on changing your internal vocabulary that you use when thinking. For example, the word “should” is one that can get you in trouble; when you say “I should have X” or “I should X,” you’re setting a situation where it’s a pass or fail situation, not one where you can be partially successful. So if you can redefine the words you use to think about things, you can also redefine the way you actually think about it.