Goals of Emotional Regulation include: naming and understanding our own emotions, decrease the frequency of unpleasant emotions, decrease our vulnerability to emotions, and decrease emotional …

DBT is based on the Biosocial Theory and is intended to help those who are highly sensitive to their environment, are highly reactive to events, often become overwhelmed with emotion, and are slow to …

Learn more about Dialectical Behavior Therapy tools. Positive Self-Talk Skill Sometimes all we have is the power of our own self-talk. There are hundreds of stories of people in dire situations who …

All emotions activate us to respond and the type of activation is biologically wired. The Opposite Action Skill allows us to choose to respond opposite from what our biological response would activate us to do.

Don’t react. Don’t move a muscle. Just freeze especially those muscles around the mouth. Freezing for a moment helps prevent you from doing what your emotions want you to do (which is to act without …

ABC Please Skill The ABC PLEASE skill is about taking good care of ourselves so that we can take care of others. Also, an important component of DBT is to reduce our vulnerability. When we take good …

Find situations that you may have previously become very emotional about and acted out. If you cannot find any situations that involve you, think of times recently where you could have used this skill or …

Build Mastery Skill You can build mastery by doing things you enjoy. Whether it is reading, cooking, cleaning, fixing a car, working a cross word puzzle, or playing a musical instrument. Learn as much …

Decide what coping or problem-solving skills you want to use in the situation. Be specific. Write out in detail how you will cope with the situation and with your emotions and action urges.

Find situations wherein your emotions seem to be in charge. Stop and think about the situation, and then use the skill to change the unpleasantness of the situation.