DIALECTICAL BEHAVIOR THERAPY SKILLS WORKBOOK: CHAPTER 1
Basic Distress Tolerance Skills
“These skills will help you endure and cope with your pain in a new, healthier way so that it doesn’t lead to suffering. The new plan outlined in these two chapters will teach you to ‘distract, relax, and cope.’
The first distress tolerance skills you’ll learn in this chapter will help you distract yourself from the situations that are causing you emotional pain. Distraction skills are important because (1) they can temporarily stop you from thinking about your pain and, as a result, (2) they give you time to find an appropriate coping response….Distraction can help you let go of the pain by helping you think about something else. Distraction also buys you time so that your emotions can settle down before you take action to deal with a distressing situation.
The second group of distress tolerance skills you’ll learn in this chapter are self-soothing skills (Johnson, 1985; Linehan, 1993b). It’s often necessary to soothe yourself before you face the cause of your distress because your emotions might be too ‘hot.’ Many people with overwhelming emotions panic when faced with an argument, rejection, failure, or other painful events….In situations like these, distress tolerance skills are similar to refilling the gas in your car so that you can keep going. Self-soothing is meant to bring you some amount of peace and relief from your pain so that you can figure out what you’re going to do next.”
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