Inpatient Therapy: DBT

According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, “Treatment approaches and individual programs continue to evolve and diversify, and many programs today do not fit neatly into traditional drug addiction treatment classifications.”

This can be why looking for an inpatient care facility can prove tricky. How do you know what kind of living situation you want? Should the setting be focused on medical treatment or socialization (like in a therapeutic community)? If you get therapy, what kind would work best for you?

For these reasons, it is really important that you do some research and that you can even have your support system look into things for you. They are probably anxious to help you find a treatment facility. One thing you need to learn about are the types of therapy. You need to find a therapy option that resonates with you. What type of therapy would you be willing to participate in?

If you are ready to look into inpatient rehab facilitates and you have questions about location, price, treatment style, residential facility, and many others, InpatientDrugRehabCenters.com can help. Give us a call at 800-430-1407Who Answers? and let us walk you through the answers to your questions and connect you with resources. We can even find the perfect treatment center.

Dialectical Behavioral Therapy

DBT works to build one’s emotion regulation and mindfulness skills.

Dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT) is one type of cognitive behavioral therapy that has been proven to work in addiction treatment. It is also used to address aggression, depression, and self-harm. DBT’s focus is on the regulation of emotion. Patients often fall back on destructive behaviors (like drug abuse) when they feel strong emotions and DBT teaches them how to control their responses. For patients who have mental or conduct disorders on top of addiction, DBT can be very helpful.

Development

Marsha M. Linehan, a psychology researcher at the University of Washington, developed DBT in the late 70s.  She had begun to notice how quickly therapists burned out when dealing with patients who weren’t motivated to heal and who resisted therapeutic intervention.

Because of this observed pattern, she made two realizations:

1. An environment of loving kindness that offers unconditional acceptance is necessary for chronically suicidal patients because they have been raised in invalidating situations.
2. Patients need to accept when they are emotionally dysfunctional and recognize it. They also need to commit to treatment just as strongly as their therapists do.

Because of these concepts, DBT tries to make therapists and patients allies in confronting and defeating addiction. These insights are the reason that DBT attempts to make patients and therapists allies in fighting addiction. This doesn’t mean that the therapist is a yes man, They both validate feelings and point out unhealthy behaviors.

Skills

DBT identifies four behavioral skills that patients need to learn: mindfulness, distress tolerance, interpersonal effectiveness, and emotion regulation.

• Mindfulness: patients should be completely aware and present
• Distress Tolerance: patients must learn to tolerate pain in difficult situations and not attempt to change it
• Interpersonal Effectiveness: patients need to both know how to ask for what they want and to be able to say without sacrificing their self-respect or relationship with others
• Emotion Regulation: patients must learn how to control their emotions

How Inpatient Drug Treatment Centers Treat Dual Diagnosis

Components

DBT also has four components: skills training group, individual treatment, DBT phone coaching, and consultation team.

1. DBT skills training group teaches behavioral skills. The group leader explains the skills and then asks clients to practice the skills in their everyday lives. The full program typically takes 24 weeks of weekly meetings.
2. DBT individual therapy aims to improve client motivation and to help clients relate the skills to challenges and events in their lives.
3. DBT phone coaching is provides clients with immediate coaching on using the skills they have learned to successfully manage difficult situations in their everyday lives.
4. DBT therapist consultation team helps therapists stay inspired and skilled so they can provide the best treatment possible.

If you are interested in finding an inpatient treatment facility that uses DBT, you can rely on InpatientDrugRehabCenters.com to help you find the answers to your questions. Don’t be afraid to reach out by calling 800-430-1407Who Answers?. Someone is waiting right now to help you.