Dialectical behavior therapy for anxiety can help when your emotions seem to go from zero to one hundred with no warning. One minute you’re fine; the next your heart is racing, your thoughts won’t stop, and even simple things feel impossible. You might shake, feel sick, or just freeze. Sometimes your body reacts before your brain can catch up.
DBT teaches skills you can actually use. It helps you deal with stress, stay in the moment, and handle your emotions without hurting yourself or anyone else. It’s not a quick fix, but it works if you practice it.
At Embrace Now, we work with each person to create a DBT program that fits their needs. We focus on more than just easing anxiety. We help you build tools to face life’s emotional ups and downs with more control and less self-blame. If you want to see how dialectical behavioral therapy techniques can help, we are ready to support you along the way.
What is Dialectical Behavior Therapy?
Dialectical Behavior Therapy, or DBT, is a form of talk therapy that helps individuals to regulate intense emotions by teaching to balance acceptance and change. As a form of Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT), DBT blends the traditional CBT strategy of challenging unhealthy thoughts and behaviors with its own key skills of mindfulness, acceptance, distress tolerance, and interpersonal relationships.
What is DBT Used For?
Originally, DBT was designed to help individuals with borderline personality disorder regulate their emotions. However, it has shown to be effective in treating a wide range of mental health disorders, especially in individuals who experience strong emotions.
Conditions frequently treated using DBT include:
- Anxiety
- Depression
- Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
- Substance abuse
- Eating disorders
DBT has also been effective in treating individuals who suffer from suicidal tendencies and self-harm.
The Core Four DBT Areas
DBT focuses on implementing four key skills in treatment. These skills are identified as:
- Mindfulness
Mindfulness teaches individuals to be more cognizant of their emotions and thoughts. It is intended to help ground patients in the present and filter out negativity from past events or fear of future events.
- Distress tolerance
Many of the mental health conditions treated with DBT can become overwhelming at times due to how intense and persistent the related thoughts and emotions become. Distress tolerance teaches individuals to deal with their emotions without worsening them, in turn building strength and confidence.
- Emotional regulation
Emotional regulation teaches patients to acknowledge their negative emotions without dwelling on them or letting them take over. It also teaches individuals to change these emotions to positive and foster positive emotions as a whole.
- Interpersonal effectiveness
Interpersonal effectiveness teaches individuals to maintain healthy relationships, without letting your mental health issues take control. For example, people with anxiety may have trouble telling others no, but when building interpersonal effectiveness, you will learn to prepare for these situations and how to say no. This skill helps to build confidence and healthy boundaries in relationships.
What Does DBT Look Like?
Despite DBT being a talk-therapy, DBT sessions typically do not involve therapists talking patients through their struggles. Instead, DBT focuses on teaching patients to accept and change their behaviors for a healthier lifestyle.
DBT can look different depending on the mental health condition it is targeting and simply on a person-to-person basis. Therapists will work with their patients to come up with the best strategy for their case, and this might be altered as the patient begins to progress through DBT.
However, DBT will typically be composed of four session types:
- Pre-assessment
In DBT pre-assessment, therapists work with their patients to confirm that DBT is the best treatment option for their case. During this time, the therapist will explain how DBT works, what their plan may look like, and how long it will take. Therapists will also try to collect more information on the patient’s case during this time.
- Individual Therapy
Individual therapy is typically done through weekly sessions. In these sessions, patients begin to learn the core four DBT skills: mindfulness, distress tolerance, emotional regulation, and interpersonal effectiveness. They will also learn to directly implement these skills into their everyday lives to create more positive emotions.
- Skills Training
Skills training is typically done in group sessions, where patients are taught to “master” the core four skills taught in individual therapy. It is important that these group sessions are not confused with group therapy, as these sessions are typically done in classroom style.
- Telephone Crisis Coaching
Telephone crisis coaching is used on an as-needed basis during DBT. It acts as a lifeline when patients are thinking of taking extreme actions or feeling extremely overwhelmed by their emotion in between sessions. Telephone crisis coaching allows patients to receive emergency help during real-life situations. Embrace Now does not offer phone coaching.
At Embrace Now, we incorporate components of DBT skills into individual therapy. We do not offer fully adherent DBT treatment, but we believe DBT skills can be transformative in coping with anxiety.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy vs Dialectical Behavior Therapy for Anxiety
CBT is often thought of as the best form of treatment for conditions like anxiety; however, for some people, CBT is not effective due to the strength of emotions. DBT is particularly successful in situations where individuals experience extreme or even debilitating emotions.
The key differences between CBT and DBT are:
- CBT focuses on identifying negative behaviors and challenging them. DBT teaches patients to accept their behaviors and emotions and learn to redirect them as positive behaviors.
- CBT is done as an individual talk therapy and is often flexible on how each session can be completed depending on what the patient is experiencing. DBT is completed as a multifaceted therapy that includes individual sessions, group sessions, and even phone sessions.
When deciding between cognitive behavioral therapy vs dialectical behavior therapy, it really comes down to what fits your needs. CBT works well for many people because it focuses on spotting negative behaviors and challenging them. But if your emotions feel intense or overwhelming, DBT can be more helpful. Understanding the differences between DBT vs CBT therapy can help you pick the approach that’s right for you.
Finding the Right Therapist or Psychologist for Anxiety at Embrace Now
If learning real, practical dialectical behavioral therapy techniques to handle emotional storms sounds like what you’ve been missing, the next step is about connection. Finding the right therapist or psychologist for anxiety is the most important part. It’s about someone who understands your unique anxiety, speaks plainly, and makes you feel heard, not analyzed.
That’s what we focus on at Embrace Now. Our team works with anxiety, panic, OCD, and phobias every day. When you reach out, you’re connecting with a real person who can tailor dialectical behavior therapy for anxiety to your life, whether you meet in our Conshohocken or Paoli office or through telehealth from anywhere in the country.
At Embrace Now, we incorporate components of DBT skills into individual therapy. We do not offer fully adherent DBT treatment, but we believe DBT skills can be transformative in coping with anxiety.
You don’t have to keep white-knuckling your way through anxiety. The skills taught in dialectical behavior therapy for anxiety are learnable, and the right therapist or psychologist for anxiety can guide you through them. Let’s build that toolkit together.
Ready to stop just managing anxiety and start moving through it? Contact Embrace Now today, and let’s talk about how we can help.
Reviewed by Dr. Sandra, Licensed Psychologist
Frequently Asked Questions
A1. Dialectical behavior therapy helps people who feel emotions very intensely. It teaches practical skills for handling crises and difficult relationships. You learn to accept yourself while also working on change. It’s like a class for managing tough feelings more effectively.
A2. The main points teach you that your emotions have a real cause. You practice staying focused in the present moment. You learn ways to survive painful times without making things worse. It also gives you skills to manage feelings and ask for what you need from others.
A3. CBT focuses on changing your thoughts to change how you feel. DBT focuses more on accepting your feelings while you learn to cope with them. DBT includes more training, like groups and between-session support. It’s often better for when emotions feel too strong to control.
A4. For many people, therapy helps anxiety feel more manageable. It teaches you how to deal with anxious thoughts instead of spiraling. Over time, anxiety tends to lose some of its grip. The skills you learn can help long after therapy ends.
A5. A therapist helps you understand what sets your anxiety off. They work with you on tools you can use when anxiety shows up in real life. Therapy is not about fixing you; it is about giving you better ways to cope. With time, anxiety usually feels less intense and easier to handle.
Free Consultation for Anxiety: Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)
Schedule a free 10 minute consultation call with therapist, Dr. Sandra Ostroff.
Dr. Sandra Ostroff specializes in evidence-based therapies for anxiety disorders, phobias, panic disorder, and OCD.