Addiction is a tough beast to slay — and we all know that it can be almost impossible without professional support. Not all treatment options are the same, though, and it's not that hard to come across approaches that will shame and criticize the core of your being, making you feel more vulnerable that you already are at this time. Rather than helping you achieve remission and remove obstacles to sobriety, some treatment modalities may make you feel worthless and demotivated.
Could dialectical behavior therapy be the right approach for you as you work to leave your addiction behind?
What is Dialectical Behavior Therapy?
Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), based on the more well-known cognitive behavioral therapy but also quite different, was pioneered by American psychologist Marsha Linehan as she tried to figure out the best way to help women who were feeling suicidal and had multiple, complex, psychological problems.
Cognitive behavioral therapy is, as you may know, focused on helping people dealing with the problems in their lives — which can be as varied as depression, addiction, eating disorders, and trauma — by guiding them towards recognizing how their thought patterns and behaviors are faulty. This is, in turn, meant to lead to new thoughts and behaviors that better serve the person's mental health.
Dr Linehan discovered — not that surprisingly, when you think about it — that this change-focused model of therapy made many patients feel criticized, devalued, misunderstood, and a whole bunch of other things that you really don't want from an effective therapy program.
There's still that element of healing, self-improvement, and learning new skills, of course, but some people will definitely find DBT more helpful as they work on bridging the gap between their current reality and where they want to be in life.
Dialectical behavior therapy was originally refined to best serve people with Borderline Personality Disorder. It has seen been used and research in the context of many other issues, however, including depression, eating disorders, post traumatic stress disorder, suicidality, and yes, substance abuse and other addictions.
What can you actually expect from Dialectical Behavior Therapy?
DBT can take place in individual sessions, group sessions, and even over the phone or through the internet. If you choose DBT, you may participate in a variety of these settings. The first task is to reduce the kinds of things that are acutely threatening your life and health, while the second priority would lie in tackling obstacles that prevent you from doing your most productive work in therapy.
DBT can help you build a new mindset in which your life doesn't revolve around your addiction, and teach you strategies for a new life. This will include behaviors that help you live life without the addiction, building a support system, and adopting healthy habits.
One important thing to know about DBT for substance abuse is that this philosophy sees addiction as a problem to be solved — shame plays no role here, and in no way is addiction treated as a moral failing. Rather, DBT helps you look at your emotions and how you can manage them, without the use of a substance.
Is Dialectical Behavior Therapy effective for people in treatment for addiction?
Addiction is a chronic disease that's difficult to treat — many people will suffer relapses, while it's not uncommon never to reach full remission, either. If you were hoping for a "do this, and you'll be free from your addiction forever" kind of result, we're going to disappoint you. DBT is offers no guarantee of success. A lot of that will depend on the work you do yourself.
However, dialectical behavior therapy has had very promising results, and not just for addicts who also have Borderline Personality Disorder. Compared to other therapies, one study found, addicts attending DBT had higher rates of remission (as evidenced by urine drug tests). DBT is specifically likely to work well for you if you haven't had much luck with other kinds of therapies or approaches and generally find it hard to talk openly with mental health professionals.
Research is still ongoing to determine how effective dialectical behavior therapy is in helping addicts reach remission and turn their life around — start "living that life worth living". In the meantime, it certainly has the potential to help individual people as they commit to banish substance use disorders and behavioral addictions from their lives.
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