The Skillful Podcast

Are you a therapist who wants the experience of being in a DBT skills group yourself? Are you curious about how the skills can help YOU?   Marielle and Ed are starting a new skills group designed specifically for therapists to learn the skills together in a supportive online environment. We are excited to offer this group.   For more information and to sign up visit www.dbtskillsgroupfortherapists...

What DBT skill do you use when your emotion fits the facts ? One option is to work on changing the facts. The skill of Problem Solving offers a structured framework to help you change situations that cause painful emotions.   Problem Solving begins, like many of the Emotion Regulation skills in DBT, by naming your emotion. Next, identify your goal in solving the problem and come up with a solution...

Today's episode discusses the DBT skill of Willingness.   Willingness is one of the reality acceptance skills that we teach in Distress Tolerance. This skill can help you let go of fighting what is so you can do what's needed in each situation - without dragging your feet or holding onto a grudge.   One way to understand Willingness is to think of its opposite: Willfulness. When Willfulness is pre...

Once you have grasp of the DEAR MAN skill, you might find yourself getting stuck when you try to use it in difficult interactions. Maybe the other person pushes back, tries to change the subject, or refuses to engage fairly.   While we can't force anyone to do anything, we can continue to use our skills to stay as effective as possible during heated moments.   For full show notes, visit our websit...

Once you have a grasp of the change-oriented skills in DBT (such as Check the Facts, Opposite Action, and Problem Solving) it can be hard to figure out which one to use.   This episode walks you through deciding if and when to act on an unwanted emotion. For full show notes, visit our website: https://bayareadbtcc.com/podcast DBT Skills Discussed Check the Facts Mindfulness of Current Emotions Pro...

Shame is one of the most painful emotions we can experience.    This episode explores what shame is, when the emotion is useful (and when it's not), and skills to help you cope when shame threatens to overwhelm you.   Shame is a social emotion that motivates us to repair transgressions that might result in us being excluded from a group we want (or need) to belong to. Many of us, though, experienc...

Today's episode focuses on the emotion of fear . At its most fundamental, fear keeps us safe. It guides us to fight, flee, or freeze in the face of danger.   Often, though, fear can be chronic, manifesting as anxiety, worry, or tension even when we are safe. This episode helps you identify fear in all its manifestations and provides tools to help you cope with it. DBT Skills Discussed Build Master...

In this episode, Marielle and Ed discuss the emotion of anger. In its most useful form, anger moves us to protect and defend ourselves and those we care about.   Many people, though, find anger frightening because they have witnessed destructive expressions of anger such as emotional or physical violence. This episode unpacks the emotion of anger so you can understand it in yourself and potentiall...

When we find ourselves getting caught in extremes, the DBT skill called Walking the Middle Path helps us re-calibrate.   Use this skill when you notice you are caught in binary thinking to find a way to move towards center. This episode explores common opposites:   Reasonable Mind vs. Emotion Mind Doing Mind vs. Being Mind Intense Desire of the Moment vs. Radical Acceptance of the Moment Self-deni...

This episode is an overview of the core Interpersonal Effectiveness skills in DBT, focusing on clarifying objectives, DEAR MAN, GIVE, and FAST.  There are a lot of acronyms in the Interpersonal Effectiveness module! Memorizing what each letter of the acronym stands for, especially DEAR MAN, can help you access the skill when you most need it . The best way to memorize the DEAR MAN script is to wri...

In Part 2 of How to Assert Yourself, Marielle and Ed discuss common interpersonal pitfalls in speaking up for yourself in relationships. Do you swallow your needs and then find they all come out in a rush of words and anger?   Vacillating between staying silent and then blowing up is common and hurts both your relationships and your self-respect. This episode offers lots of ideas to help you avoid...

Do you find it hard to speak up for yourself in relationships? If so, this 2-part series on how to assert yourself may help you understand why it can feel so hard to ask for things or say no in different types of relationships. In order to be able to assert yourself, you first need to know what you want and don't want. Sometimes this is harder that it seems. If you've spent a lifetime minimizing o...

In this episode, Marielle and Ed answer a listener's question about fears of abandonment when conflict arises in relationships. These fears go straight to the heart of old wounds for many people.  Often, worry that conflict will destroy a relationship is rooted in our earliest relationships with our caregivers. If that early care was inconsistent, absent, or punishing in some way, it will be hard...

This episode is the 2nd part of an overview of the Emotion Regulation skills in DBT, focusing on skills that can help you be in Emotion Mind less often. You can find part 1 here .  The skills discussed in this episode may not have an immediate impact on how you're feeling, but regular application of these skills over time builds emotional resilience and flexibility. DBT Skills Discussed Accumulati...

The Emotion Regulation skills in DBT offer lots of ways to help you identify and respond to emotions. Some of the Emotion Regulation skills focus on change, while others focus on acceptance. This toggling back and forth between acceptance and change is the primary dialectic we are continually balancing in DBT. This episode provides an overview of the Emotion Regulation skills as a whole, and takes...

This episode explores how to apply mindfulness skills to help you manage distressing thoughts using the DBT skill called Mindfulness of Current Thoughts. Thoughts can cause a lot of suffering. Often, thoughts about events are based on assumptions, judgments, or interpretations rather than on facts. The core of this skill is to notice thoughts as just thoughts, or sensations of the brain, rather th...

Today, Marielle interviews Elle Michel, LMFT, a therapist in Los Angeles who specializes in treating complex trauma. Elle uses a combination of modalities to treat trauma, including DBT, Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), and Brainspotting.  This episode focuses on describing what happens in the nervous system after a traumatic event, and how to use DBT skills to cope with an ac...

Today, we take a deep dive into working with judgments.  Judgments about ourselves and others can increase emotional suffering and negatively impact relationships. Judgments are often assumptions, interpretations, or myths that we add to the facts. We then tend to mistake our judgments for facts.  This episode explores how to notice all of the subtle and often habitual ways judgments show up, as w...

The Distress Tolerance skills in DBT offer creative ways to get through challenging situations without making things worse.  In Part 2 of this overview of Distress Tolerance skills, we focus on acceptance skills. Both acceptance and change skills can help lower emotional distress so you can access your most wise, grounded self. Radical Acceptance, as well as skills that support Radical Acceptance,...

The Distress Tolerance skills in DBT offer creative ways to get through challenging situations without making things worse . Today's episode is Part 1 of an overview of Distress Tolerance as a whole, with a special focus on change-oriented skills. When emotional distress is high, there can be an intense desire to do something to make the distress stop. Very often, when we numb or distance ourselve...

Do you find asking for things or saying no hard? If so, this episode is for you.  Marielle and Ed provide a framework for thinking about how strongly to make requests and how strongly to say no. For some people, making requests confidently is challenging and for others, it's saying no that is hard. Sometimes it depends on the type of relationship. Perhaps you're comfortable saying no with friends...

Today's episode is a response to a listener question about procrastinating making progress towards life goals. Marielle and Ed explore the emotions that underlie urges to put off doing what needs to get done. For some people, procrastination is a habitual response, no matter what the task. For other people, procrastination is a response to specific unpleasant tasks. Either way, procrastination oft...

Today, Marielle interviews Greg Bodin, MFT, a therapist in the San Francisco Bay Area who practices Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, or ACT.  Greg specializes in anxiety, trauma, men's sex issues, and is also a certified EMDR therapist.  ACT and DBT have a lot in common. One of the core tenets of ACT is learning to accept where your life is right now and committing to making changes so that your...

Today, Marielle and Ed discuss the D in DBT: Dialectics. Dialectics helps us remember that two seemingly opposing forces can both be true , change is the only constant, and that we are all connected.  When emotions are heightened, either/or thinking can get us stuck and limit our ability to think and creatively problem solve. Dialectics encourages us to move away from either/or thinking and toward...

This episode is in response to a listener question about combining DBT skill use for difficult situations. We thought it was a great question to tackle in an episode. As your knowledge of DBT skills increases, you will likely find that using several different skills is often the most effective way to respond to challenging life situations. Another way of thinking about this is layering skills - us...