Dialectical Behavior Therapy (others call it Dialectical Behavioral Therapy) is a treatment pioneered by Marsha Linehan, PhD, in 1991. It is a cognitive behavioral treatment which combines cognitive-behavioral theory and methods with eastern meditative principles and practices. Dialectical Behavior therapy was developed by psychologist Marsha Linehan.

Who Benefits from DBT Skills Training?

DBT can be useful for Borderline Personality Disorder, Substance Abuse, self-injury, Bulimia, and Binge Eating Disorder, Bipolar Disorder, and depression.

Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills Training

Usually, DBT includes a combination of group skills training and individual psychotherapy. There are four main types of skills that are focus in DBT.

Mindfulness techniques

Mindfulness is cornerstone in DBT. Mindfulness is an open, accepting, non-judgmental awareness. It helps individuals for accepting and tolerating the strong emotions. Therefore mindfulness considered “core” skill, because is essential to implement the other DBT skills successfully. When you’re mindful, you observe your behaviors, emotions and thoughts from outside, without judging and labeling.

The goals of teaching mindfulness skills in Dialectical Behavior Therapy are:

Fully observing without judgment
Describing without judgmental statements
Participating in the activity with fully focus

Distress Tolerance

Distress tolerance skill is an ability for accepting and tolerating painful events and emotions when, there is no way to solve the problem or get rid of the stressful situation.

Individuals who have low distress tolerance do self destructive behaviors for escaping from severe emotional pain. Self destructive behaviors destroy oneself, one’s family and causes emotional crisis for the long term. Self destructive behaviors include three categories:

1. Self harm.
2. Drug abuse.
3. Suicide.

There are four categories of distress tolerance skills in Dialectical Behavior Therapy:

1. Distraction.
2. Self-Soothing.
3. Improving the moment.
4. Focusing on the pros and cons.

Distress tolerance skills help individuals for tolerating stressful situations and managing difficult emotional states without using Self destructive behaviors.

Emotion Regulation

Individuals with borderline personality disorder, bipolar disorder and suicidal individuals suffer from uncontrolled emotions such as depression, mania, anger and anxiety. Learning to regulate our emotions enables us to manage our emotions instead of being managed by them.

Emotion Regulation skills include three stages:

understand what you’re feeling
reduce your vulnerability
Decrease emotional suffering.

Interpersonal Effectiveness

Our interactions with other people can generate stress. Stress can also lead to self destructive behaviors. On the other hand, our relationships are the effective tools for coping with stress. Interpersonal response patterns taught in Dialectical Behavior Therapy include effective strategies for asking for what you want.

Meehlfoundation.org is available to help you with dealing with a bipolar spouse, living with a bipolar spouse, and bipolar relationships, understanding bipolar disorder, bipolar depression, and bipolar information, facilitating bipolar family support and bipolar disorder treatment, bringing bipolar speaking engagements and workshops to your community and providing one-on-one Life Coaching on issues relating to bipolar disorder and depression. Tell them what personally works for you in dealing with BPD!

Home schooling has been growing popular nowadays. Many parents found it as the perfect answer to educating their children. They are able to focus on their child’s education and provide support for them. However, many parents are still trying to determine if home schooling is right for their child. In order to make this decision it is important that the advantages and disadvantages of home schooling be taken into consideration, along with some other important issues.

The following are the advantages to be considered:

• If your child is physically incapable of going outside due to complicated diseases or is handicapped, having home education would be convenient both for the child and the parent.
• Home education is associated with close-knit family relationship as the child only interacts with the other family members.
• The child is also expected to be well-behaved if educated at home as he is not exposed to various immoralities that may come to influence him/her in a real school.
• Some parents believe that school is not a safe place for their child. Some also believe that the school is not educationally competent; a lot of concepts are not completely taught in there. In home education, they are secured with the kind of education provided to their child and they can be able to guide their child the whole time.
• In home learning, the parents could also control the curriculum of the education provided to their child. They can concentrate their child’s learning on a specific topic if they want to.
• Expenses are cut-off in home education. Children don’t need to spend on transportation fees, expensive projects and unnecessary school supplies.

On the other hand, the following are the disadvantages:

• The home educated child would not develop social skills as he is not exposed to other types of people.
• Freedom is abstained from the child; the child would not enjoy his life as a child. There are many other things that cannot be learned in an educational setting and these are only learned through experience.
• Some people do not believe on home education’s academic quality as it does not follow the standard curriculum.
• In some college universities, they require additional tests for home educated children. This is to ensure that the child is academically ready for college.
• Those that are educated at home for a long time and have decided to go to school are found to be lacking in social skills.
• Home educated individuals commonly experience psychological problems when exposed to the social environment as in entering a college/university or working on a job.

Hopefully this discussion on the advantages and disadvantages of home schooling has given you the insight you need to make an informed decision. As discussed above, the decision to home school is one of the most significant decisions you will make during your child’s life