#target behavior

A chain analysis is a tool used in DBT when the client has used a target behavior or wants to examine an ineffective response to a situation. Usually, DBT therapists want a chain to be completed before continuing the therapy. A chain basically outlines the smaller links that led to the behavior. Those links could be emotions, thoughts, body sensations, events (outside of oneself), and actions that the client does. It's basically a way to slow things down and understand why you may have used a behavior or responded the way you did. It also gives you the ability to look at where you may have been able to use a different skill so that you can be more effective next time (sometimes called a solution analysis, but I usually just include it on the side of my chain).

Why don't you want to do a chain? I find them super annoying, but oftentimes it does help me identify something I didn't realize before that may have contributed to the behavior. I'm not sure what will happen if you refuse - I think it depends on your therapist. She will probably want to explore the willfulness, but I don't know what consequences, if any, would come out of it.