turningpointrecovery.org - Why DBT It An Effective Way To Treat Addiction
Drug addiction is a terrifying problem that impacts an ever growing number of people who suffer from borderline personality disorder. Statistics show that over 17% of people with borderline personality disorder suffer from a serious addiction. However, dialectical behavioral therapy or DBT is here to help people like you recover from both their borderline personality disorder and their addiciton.
How DBT Works
DBT is a type of cognitive behavioral therapy that is designed to help treat the behavioral problems that occur in people with borderline personality disorder. People with this disorder are marked by unpredictable behaviors, wild mood swings, and a difficulty
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Very effective. A study entitled “Dialectical Behavior Therapy For Patients With Borderline Personality Disorder And Drug Dependence,” published in a 1999 edition of the “American Journal On Addiction,” showed incredibly promising results from using this treatment method above typical treatment methods.
The study tested 28 women with both borderline personality disorder and drug addiction and split them into even groups: one that received traditional therapy and another that received DBT. They found that the drop-out rate in the second group was 36%, which was 37% lowered than the drop-out rate of the first group (73%).
Beyond this startling discovery, they also found that patients who received DBT significantly lowered their drug use and had an easier time adjusting to emotional difficulties and interacting with people socially. They suggested that DBT was an “effective treatment for severely dysfunctional drug-dependent patients.”
The Reasons It Is So
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Even more surprising is how effective it has been with drug addiction and other problems, such as domestic violence, anxiety, and even eating disorders like bulimia.
Although multiple studies have confirmed it, but it has left many people wondering why it is so effective? What is it about this therapy that makes it work so well for such a large number of people? The reason seems to lie in the way that it helps deal with emotional dysfunction. Simply put, problematic and harmful personal behaviors (like addiction) often stem from a deeply rooted emotional problem that can be hard for many people to
Nice post. DBT seems like a good intervention. I learned about DBT last week. At my job, one of the clinicians recently crearted a DBT grroup last week. Suprisingly, there are already many clients who joined the group.
According to Waltz (2003), Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) focused is on recognizing accepting and moderating emotional responses in clients. Its main goal is to teach the patient skills to cope with stress, regulate emotions and improve relationships with others. DBT is designed for use by people who have urges to harm themselves, such as those who self-injure or who have suicidal thoughts and
These can typically last from one year to a year and half that includes individual or group therapy. It mainly concentrates on the maladaptive thoughts. Behavioral techniques are incorporated into therapy, such as homework assignments and role playing. Sabine Keller et al mentions that DBT has five components that are essential for it to be effective: individual therapy, skills training group therapy, therapists’ consultation, phone consultation between each session, and the structure of the client’s environment (Keller, et al., 2017). DBT is a complicated therapeutic treatment since it combines four modes (individual therapy, group skills training, constant phone support and consultation meetings) as well as four modules (conscientiousness, distress tolerance, social relationship influence and regulation of emotions). As stated by Thomas A. Field, the reasoning for the modality is to allow the clients to discover how to develop coping skills to manage emotional distress (Field, 2016).
Research has found CBT to be helpful in reducing relapse with older youth and males (Kaminer, Burleson, & Goldberger, 2002). CBT rate of efficacy diminishes over time which suggest incorporating other methodologies to maintain or increase CBT effectiveness. According to Miller, Forchimes, & Zweben (2011) CBT provides addicts with coping skills that were not learned because of social economic or vareity of other reasons. The intent for CBT is to collaborate with the client using a variety of cognitive, emotive, and behavioral techniques. to identify potential areas where thinking errors have led to a need to use substances or how substances have created change in beliefs and actions. Counselors can use CBT as their behavior through. Corey (2015) describes CBT as active, directive, time-limited, and psychoeducational structured therapy (p. 443). Moreover, according to Griffin & Botvin (2010) these factors consist of three components, (1)
After reading through the biological approaches section in chapter 8, it became glaringly obvious what works and what does not work. When talking about the treatment of substance use disorders, detoxification is extremely important, but that seems to be only part of the solution. Chemical cravings to drugs and alcohol seem to be overwhelming and almost impossible to do by oneself, and the use of professional help seems almost necessary.
DBT is designed to treat clients at all levels of severity and complexity of disorders. A growing body of empirical studies has examined DBT. DBT has been the subject of the most study and is the most widely used (Carson-Wong, Rizvi, & Steffel, 2013).
Combing medication with counseling and behavior therapy to treat substance abuse is Medication-Assisted Therapy (MAT). It provides an “all-around” treatment approach and research shows that this treatment approach can be very successful in treating people with addictions. The treatment is mainly used for the addiction of opioids and prescription pain relievers that contain opiates. All the medications used for this therapy is required to be approved by the Food and Drug Administration and if mixed with certain medications, can be fatal. MAT can be helpful for an addict going through recovery.
Though several personality disorders are highly complex and a challenge to treat, there are effective treatments available (“Treating Borderline” 1). The various treatments are broken down by method, the first of which being cognitive behavioral therapy, which attempts to alter the conscious thoughts and behavioral patterns of patients (Daniel); (“Treating Borderline” 2). Cognitive behavior therapy itself is broken down into two therapies, dialectical behavioral therapy and schema-focused therapy (“Treating Borderline” 2). Dialectical behavioral therapy, developed by Dr. Linehan, is centered on the basis that personality disorders are formed when hypersensitive patients are in situations which lack the emotional support they require, therefore leading to their “inability to regulate emotions” (“Treating Borderline” 2). Thus, the treatment serves to help the patient gain control over their emotion and behavior (“Treating Borderline” 2). The treatment itself consists of group and individual sessions and typically lasts approximately one year (“Treating Borderline” 2). During the group sessions, patients learn to become more aware of their behaviors and emotions through sessions pertaining to “problem solving, mindfulness meditation, and breath training“(“Treating Borderline” 2). In personal sessions, referred to as psychotherapy, the psychiatrist explains to the patient how the lessons from the group therapy sessions are applicable
Marsha Linechan in an attempt to restructure traditional Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) to better treat female borderline personality disordered clients. This treatment focuses on a subject group that has high levels of emotional reactivity with skills taught that can help manage the emotional response and perception of triggering stimulus. Dr. Linechan’s primary goal was to impart skills into the client so as to manage the stressors of their life outside and without the need of therapy (Bass, Van Nevel, & Swart, 2014). Review of Dr. Linechan’s theory found that within this third wave therapy style there were three constructs built out of CBT framework that allowed the gestation of emotional regulatory and stabilization skills. The three primary goals Dr. Linchan implemented educational dialectics, radical acceptance and validation all rooted within the theoretical and manualized treatment of CBT (Bayles, Blossom, & Apsche, 2014). Currently DBT is considered one of the most frequently investigated therapy styles for the treatment of borderline personality disorder, specifically in its handling of the extreme emotional dysregulation which contribute to the suicidality of those diagnosed with this disorder (Bass, Van Nevel, & Swart, 2014; Kliem, Kröger, & Kosfelder, 2010). Meta-analysis conducted examining DBT’s effectiveness in both randomized, non-randomized, control, and not controlled studies have found that DBT exhibits an overall moderate effect, r=.56 (Kliem, Kröger, & Kosfelder,
DBT is designed to treat clients at all levels of severity and complexity of disorders. A growing body of empirical studies has examined DBT. DBT has been the subject of the most study and is the most widely used (Carson-Wong, Rizvi, & Steffel, 2013).
Cognitive behavioral therapy is commonly used in the treatment for drug-dependent individuals. CBT is a short-term brief approach that is used as a treatment for drug abuse and dependence. CBT has been rigorously evaluated in clinical trials and has solid empirical support as treatment for drug addiction. There is evidence that CBT is effective with severely addicted individuals. CBT is structured, goal-oriented and focused on the immediate problems faced by drug addicts that are entering treatment and are struggling to control their drug abuse. CBT is flexible and uses an individualized approach that is adaptable to a wide range of patients as well as a
More importantly, to successfully treat this disorder it is best to use an approach that was developed for these difficult-to-treat patients with the borderline personality disorder. This therapy is known as the dialectical
Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) treatment is a cognitive-behavioral approach that emphasizes the psychosocial aspects of treatment. The theory behind the approach is that some people are prone to react in a more intense and out-of-the-ordinary manner toward certain emotional situations, primarily those found in romantic, family and friend relationships. DBT theory suggests that some people’s arousal levels in such situations can increase far more quickly than the average person’s, attain a higher level of emotional stimulation, and take a significant amount of time to return to baseline arousal levels. (Staff, 2013) People who are sometimes diagnosed with borderline personality disorder experience extreme swings in their emotions, see the world in black-and-white shades, and seem to always be jumping from one crisis to another. Because few people understand such reactions — most of all their own family and a childhood that emphasized invalidation — they don’t have any methods for coping with these sudden, intense
This article is about Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) and its evidence based treatment for Borderline Personality Disorder (Chapman, PhD & Fraser, 2006). The article also discusses how DBT can be used to help parasuicidal women with borderline personality disorder (BPD) as well as those with Substance Use Disorders (SUDs), binge-eating disorders and depression in older folks (Chapman, PhD & Fraser, 2006). DBT includes aspects of cognitive-behavioral therapy, and cognitive restructuring. The five functions of treatment with DBT are also discussed; enhancing capabilities, generalizing capabilities, improving motivation and reducing dysfunctional behaviors, enhancing and maintaining therapist capabilities and motivation and structuring the environment.
Introduction: This article discusses the significance of psychotherapy options in treating borderline personality disorder (BPD). Borderline personality is a disorder with a variety of symptoms that can be briefly summarized as instability in mood, thinking, behavior, personal relations, and self-image. Psychotherapy options include cognitive