Last month saw the retirement of Dr Marsha Linehan, the treatment developer of DBT, from an illustrious career spanning several decades.
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In this blog, we would like to say goodbye to Carolyn Fitzgibbon. Carolyn has been one of the 5 directors of DBTBrisbane since it commenced in 2012. Carolyn has worked as an Individual Therapist and Skills Trainer at DBTBrisbane. In November 2018, Carolyn left DBTBrisbane to work on her other interests of NDIS mental health work, Sensory Processing and Sensory Modulation. She can be contacted through her website: http://www.carolynfitzgibbon.com/ We wish Carolyn all the best with her future work.
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I was sitting in a coffee shop with little Miss 4 the other day and she gave me a wonderful example of effective communication
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Sometimes in life things can get really hectic! Perhaps work takes over, or family commitments overwhelm you, or perhaps you simply get caught up in the day-to-day tasks of living. Very recently I was reminded of the importance of accumulating positive emotions, even in the short-term, and the amazingly good impacts this can have on your mental health.
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The first time I heard of the half-smile skill I was a little dubious. That seemed to be the reaction of people when I first taught them the skill too. I practised it and continued to be dubious, until one day a colleague told me that she used the half smile when she was in difficult meetings at work. So I tried it in difficult meetings and loved using it.
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Rebecca Medway and I have co-facilitated Skills Groups together on and off since 2008. When our first DBTBrisbane group started running some years ago, some banter between Rebecca and I began to emerge about what is the best DBT skill. Before I go on, the thing you need to know about DBT is that it is full of acronyms that make next to no sense until you’re learning the skills.
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In the last while adult colouring in has exploded in a big way. Books of colouring in now regularly top the adult best seller lists and I’ve even seen pots of pencils with photocopied sheets of patterns in GP waiting rooms sitting with the magazines.
Many of these colouring books tout themselves with words like mindfulness, therapeutic and stress releasing…..so i got to thinking is this a way we can encourage mindfulness practice?
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Many clients and family members want to know how DBT differs from CBT.
Cognitive-behavioural therapy (or CBT) has been the mainstay of modern therapy for several decades. CBT is the front-line treatment in tackling depression, anxiety and substance use (and is usually very effective). However, clients who have more complex difficulties (such as self-harm or suicidality) or who have a number of different issues (such as problems with substance use combined with depression or anxiety as well as family or relationship difficulties) will tend to benefit more from DBT.
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The new DBT program for young people and their families
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If you’ve ever wondered when the STOP skill might come in handy, here’s an example. The other day little Miss 5 was in the pool with her cousins Master 5 and Little Miss 4. Little Miss 5 was standing on the side of the pool leaning over and looking in to see where the creepy crawly was because she’s scared of it and wanted to avoid it. Little Mr 5 comes up behind her with mischief written all over his face. He got up close, took a stable stance and the arms came up in perfect pushing position. Before my sister or I could act we saw him Stop. He just froze. He took a deep breath. You could see ..
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Families and partners of clients often want to know what they can do to best support their loved one, particularly if that person is immersed in an intensive therapy like DBT. One of the most useful and under-rated skills that families can learn to master is the skill of validation. Validation means acknowledging that a person’s response makes sense in some way; it’s finding the kernel of truth in another’s perspective. Validation does not necessarily mean agreeing with or liking a particular behaviour, emotion, thought, belief or opinion (in this way it links nicely to the skill of radical acceptance). What validation does do is demonstrate that you’re listening, that you care enough about the other person to be willing ...
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So I decided to make a beautiful roast chicken dinner for my fussy Miss 5 recently. It had all the works, roast potatoes, pumpkin and sweet potato that had been floured so they were crispy on the outside and fluffy on the inside, corn on the cob, gravy, the chicken had been marinated in an apricot marinade. There was also broccoli and carrot. Anyway so Miss 5 takes one lick of the chicken and says “That’s horrible Mummy’ and refuses to try anything else. So I decided that this was the moment to talk about the difference between evaluative Vs discriminatory judgments. I explained that when you say that something is ‘horrible’ you are evaluating it as completely and objectively ...
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I have been thinking of the DBT skill of Urge Surfing this week as I am planning the most effective way to teach it in skills group. Urge Surfing refers to experiencing an urge to do something (drink, eat, engage in target behaviours, say something mean…) and not acting on the urge. For many people, experiencing an urge without acting on it is something that seems so intense that they will ‘not be able to stand it. ‘ And because they think that they can’t stand it, they are more likely to give in. When we practice urge surfing as a skill, we notice and are curious about the urge. When did it start? What prompted it? Where are we ...
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Happy holiday season. I have been to a few social events lately with some lovely food, including an old favourite of mine – pistachios. But this year, I have developed anaphylaxis to Pistachios. I used to really enjoy eating the Pistachios. As well as the sadness of not being able to eat pistachios, I could also be saying: ‘why me?, “its not fair’, ‘but I love pistachios’ ‘this can’t be happening’ this shouldn’t be happening maybe the Doctors were wrong or mixed up the tests. Why couldn’t it happen to Jane. She doesn’t even like pistachios.. Mike looks like he is really enjoying those nuts. Lucky him, I wish I could. This would generate some strong emotions including anger, envy, ...
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I am very passionate about Dialectical Behaviour Therapy and thoroughly enjoy working with clients and seeing changes occur in their mood, relationships and lives. One of my other interests is Sensory Modulation. This is a term used to describe using sensory input to change how we feel. There are some distress tolerance techniques within DBT that use the senses to change the physiology of intense emotions. (although they aren’t called sensory modulation skills). Sensory Modulation techniques are broader than distress tolerance and based on some different theories. These include the theory of sensory processing differences, an understanding of the 8 senses and considering the person and their environment. Sometimes it is difficult to use a cognitive (thinking technique) until the ...
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