Dialectical Behavior Therapy, or DBT, helps clients cope with the emotional turmoil of substance abuse and mental health disorders. The therapeutic method was designed to help individuals regulate their emotions, build healthy methods of coping, and overcome interpersonal conflicts. At The Retreat of Broward, our DBT in Pompano Beach, FL, provides relief to those who are suffering. As an evidence-based form of psychotherapy and a branch of cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), DBT also helps people improve their relationships with their family and peers.
What is Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)?
As a form of cognitive-behavioral therapy, DBT seeks to strengthen how a person deals with stress, emotions, and relationships. DBT is often combined with CBT to produce the most effective treatment plan. Focusing on dialectics specifically, our DBT therapy in Florida includes a therapist who works with an individual or a group.
Here, the goal is to help a person heal through balance, self-awareness, self-acceptance, and positive change. By helping a person efficiently and appropriately regulate their emotions, one can make an easier transition back into the world after treatment.
The Role of Emotional Regulation in Addiction Recovery
Emotional regulation is central to the recovery process in DBT. The therapy aims to help individuals develop a more balanced and stable emotional life, reducing the need to rely on substances or addictive behaviors. Emotional regulation in DBT involves several key components:
- Mindfulness: Mindfulness practices help individuals become more aware of their thoughts, feelings, and bodily sensations. By cultivating mindfulness, individuals can observe their cravings and emotional states without immediately reacting to them. This increased awareness allows them to choose healthier coping mechanisms.
- Distress tolerance: This set of skills enables individuals to withstand emotional crises and distressing situations without resorting to addictive behaviors. Techniques such as radical acceptance, self-soothing, and distraction are taught to help individuals manage intense emotions.
- Emotion regulation: DBT provides strategies to help individuals understand and modulate their emotional responses. These strategies include identifying and labeling emotions, increasing positive emotional experiences, and reducing vulnerability to negative emotions.
- Interpersonal effectiveness: Addiction often strains relationships and social interactions. Our DBT in Pompano Beach teaches skills for maintaining healthy relationships and effectively communicating needs and boundaries, which can reduce stress and emotional turmoil.
Effectiveness of DBT for Addiction
As an evidence-based form of therapy, DBT has been helping people for over 30 years. This type of therapy has proven to be wildly successful. Over the years, it has been used to successfully treat several conditions in various community and clinical settings. Additionally, DBT is further legitimized by its relation to CBT. Cognitive-behavioral therapy, which DBT is a branch of, has seen tremendous success in America over the last 75 years.
DBT has demonstrated significant effectiveness in treating addiction, particularly among individuals with co-occurring mental health disorders such as borderline personality disorder (BPD). Originally developed by Marsha M. Linehan for chronically suicidal individuals and those with BPD, DBT has been adapted to address various other mental health issues, including substance use disorders (SUD).
Key Components of DBT in Addiction Treatment
- Skills training: DBT teaches mindfulness, distress tolerance, emotional regulation, and interpersonal effectiveness to help manage emotions and reduce self-destructive behaviors.
- Individual therapy: Weekly sessions focus on applying group-learned skills to personal challenges and real-life situations.
- Phone coaching: Between sessions, patients can access phone coaching for real-time crisis support and skill application.
- Therapist consultation: Regular meetings support therapists, helping them maintain effectiveness and avoid burnout, ensuring consistent high-quality care.
Through these components, DBT in Pompano Beach, FL, offers a structured and adaptable method that helps manage the complexities of addiction, making it an effective tool for addiction treatment.
What Does Our DBT Therapy in Florida Help with?
DBT is known to be particularly useful in assisting in the formation of positive habits as well as the regulation of emotions and coping mechanisms. When a person experiences a substance addiction or mental health disorder, their minds may move to a state of disarray. This is completely normal. Substance use disorders and mental health conditions can be some of the most stressful events a person may experience.
In this light, DBT shines. By specializing in helping people escape their old habits by forming new and positive ones, a person can see the tremendous benefits of DBT. Once a person has learned to cope effectively and to manage their stress, they can begin to live in a self-assured manner that will set them up for lasting success.
Who Would Benefit from a DBT Program?
By working to eradicate self-destructive behaviors, DBT therapy is essential to a person’s continued healing. The emotional and stress regulation techniques one learns during DBT therapy can encourage lasting stability. Many of the techniques taught in our programs help to propel our clients to brighter futures. Moreover, the fear of a mental health or substance use disorder no longer controls them. This newfound healthy mindset can benefit a person in all aspects of their life.
DBT is a valuable part of any complete treatment plan. By bridging the gap between self-acceptance and improvement, DBT can result in meaningful changes to a person’s behavior. In particular, several groups of people may see tremendous benefits from DBT. As a comprehensive approach offered at the DBT in Pompano Beach, this therapy can provide relief in areas that some other forms of treatment simply cannot.
Fortunately, DBT can help those near Pompano Beach cope with:
- PTSD
- Eating disorders
- Substance use disorders
- A mental health condition
- Borderline personality disorder
- Alcoholism
- Trauma
- Self-harm
- Anxiety
- Bipolar disorder
While this list is not exhaustive, the aforementioned disorders and conditions can find great relief through the use of DBT. The benefits of DBT are particularly evident in managing these challenging conditions, providing significant relief where other treatments may fall short. Additionally, DBT can offer a way out of situations that may feel hopeless.
What to Expect During DBT at Retreat of Broward
Upon arrival at The Retreat of Broward, a person will be evaluated individually to prepare the most comprehensive treatment plan possible. If necessary, this process may include a drug or alcohol detox. After this process is complete, a person will be treated to several of our therapeutic services.
These include:
Family Counseling
Substance addiction and mental health disorders do not simply affect one person but the entire family unit. Family therapy helps each member feel heard. Additionally, the entire family unit can begin working toward the same common goal. This form of therapy can help strengthen family bonds as well as help rebuild strained or estranged family relationships.
Individual Therapy
By opening up in a one-on-one scenario with a counselor, a person can take a deep dive into their substance use disorder or mental health condition. Individual therapy is the backbone of treatment, as it allows a person to heal as well as to feel heard throughout the entire process. Having a qualified person present simply to listen and give their full attention to our clients can help to provide deeper insight as well as get to the root of many of the causes of an individual’s addiction.
Group Therapy
Group therapy allows individuals to be placed with like-minded people. Healing around a group of like-minded individuals can be the best way to help build appropriate connections. By opening up to like-minded individuals with similar backgrounds, a person can gain new insights. Additionally, group therapy can help a person build appropriate bonds in a safe and secure environment.
Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy
Like DBT, CBT therapy helps redirect a person’s negative habits, thoughts, emotions, and actions. CBT can make a huge impact on one’s recovery journey by teaching healthy coping methods and aiding in the formation of positive habits. Often used in conjunction with DBT itself, CBT can pave the way to a lifetime of positive habits and helpful coping mechanisms.
Get Started with DBT in Pompano Beach, FL Today
At The Retreat of Broward, we are prepared to give you the tools necessary for lasting change. Located in South Florida, we are a world-class treatment facility specializing in medical detox and offering a wide range of treatment programs. With treatments such as DBT and CBT therapies, clients can learn to cope, build positive habits, and live the healthy lives they deserve.
Allow our highly skilled and compassionate team of professionals to give you the tools necessary for lasting change. Our facilities are fully equipped and prepared with everything you need to recover. With specialized DBT for addiction, we tailor treatment to meet the unique challenges of addiction recovery.
Contact us through our admissions page to learn more about our DBT in Pompano Beach, and take your first steps toward recovery today.
