Dialectical Behavior Therapy (or DBT) treats Borderline Personality Disorder, a condition that often coincides with addiction, trauma, and instability. Borderline Personality Disorder affects tens of millions of Americans (more than schizophrenia or bipolar). People with BPD often also struggle with co-occurring substance abuse or drug addiction.

DBT is highly effective at reducing symptoms of Borderline Personality Disorder by helping people to cope more effectively, to relate more securely, and to control destructive reactions to the intense emotional states characterized by BPD.

Clients at Indiana Center for Recovery work through group therapy sessions using DBT’s specific dialectical approach. DBT is founded upon the idea of opposing forces: push and pull, love and hate, change versus stability. DBT applies this to emotions as well. An emotion is either destructive or helpful depending on how they are dealt with.

DBT draws heavily from cognitive behavioral therapy (or CBT) in which you recognize dysfunctional thinking patterns that contribute to troubling behaviors. Unlike other therapies or EMDR, DBT incorporates these patterns into actual skills that can be practiced during DBT sessions to improve coping and build healthier habits of thought and action.

What is DBT (Dialectical Behavior Therapy)?

DBT (Dialectical Behavior Therapy) is a form of therapy that emphasizes practical skills to cope with our emotions and improve our relationships. To do this, DBT teaches four main sets of skills:

Distress Tolerance
Emotion Regulation
Interpersonal Effectiveness
Mindfulness

DBT combines the knowledge that pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional with the understanding that emotions are temporary. DBT helps you recognize how your thoughts can make your feelings worse or better, and DBT shows you how to work towards changing your behaviors. This is helpful in detoxification, residential treatment, and outpatient care.

DBT uses both group-based sessions as well as one-on-one outpatient therapy sessions to help people who suffer from Borderline Personality Disorder. By teaching them coping mechanisms for emotional regulation, distress tolerance, emotional expression, and interpersonal effectiveness, they achieve mastery over their emotions, and, as a result, their actions.

Core Ideas of DBT

The DBT approach is based on four core ideas about how people function. DBT assumes that:

People are inherently doing the best they can.
People fundamentally want to be happy and avoid pain.
People are capable of change.
There is no perfect way to live life.

How Does DBT Work?

DBT focuses on two ways of helping clients:

We reduce their out-of-control emotions.
We encourage the development of life skills.

DBT therapists help their clients learn distress tolerance (coping with discomfort), emotion regulation (controlling moods and shifts), mindfulness (being in the present moment), interpersonal effectiveness (managing relationships effectively), and other DBT specific skills. DBT treatment includes both weekly individual DBT therapy sessions as well as attending group DBT classes.

At Indiana Center for Recovery, all of our DBT therapists are trained to provide highly specialized DBT services for individuals with Borderline Personality Disorder, addiction, and other conditions. Your DBT therapist works alongside you to progress towards your goals. DBT is an effective way to reduce self-destructive behavior, self-harm episodes, suicide attempts, depression, and anxiety.

Who Does DBT Help?

DBT is a therapy that can benefit people who have trouble managing intense emotions, difficulty maintaining friendships and relationships, problematic drug or alcohol use, repeated suicide attempts, feelings of emptiness, and stress-related health problems. DBT has been proven to be helpful in the treatment of Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD).

DBT is effective for individuals experiencing addiction.
DBT is beneficial for those coping with trauma.

Although DBT was developed with Borderline in mind, DBT skills are useful for helping a variety of emotional problems such as depression, anxiety disorders, PTSD, and other conditions. DBT can also help people who struggle with other issues:

assertiveness
communication difficulties
chronic pain
mood instability
anger management
impulse control
relationship addiction
self-harm
substance abuse

DBT is not for everyone. DBT was designed to help people with Borderline Personality Disorder and other mental health conditions. If you have a mental disorder, seek a therapist who specializes in the illness that affects you before deciding on any specific treatment plan.

Seeking help from a professional can be beneficial because DBT therapists are trained in dealing with crisis situations, self-harm behaviors, suicide assessment and interventions, depression management, and more.

Can You Benefit from DBT?

DBT is a type of therapy that can benefit many different people. DBT focuses on how your behaviors and emotions affect others, so DBT may be helpful if you have struggled with:

anger management
communication difficulties
chronic pain
substance abuse
suicidal thoughts
mood instability
angry outbursts
relationship problems

Healing Addiction and Mental Illness with DBT

Addiction is a disease that affects millions of Americans. It can ruin your health and destroy relationships with family and friends. Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) is a gold standard for addiction treatment. DBT was developed to help people with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) work through emotions quickly and effectively while also engaging in behaviors that are healthier than alternatives.

Many people who suffer from addiction are also struggling with mental illness or other issues, but they don’t know where to turn for help. Most treatment centers focus on one problem at a time, which means that you have to wait weeks or months before getting the help you need for another issue like depression or anxiety. We specialize in addressing all of these problems at once so you can start feeling better sooner using DBT, CBT, EMDR, and more methods.

At the Indiana Center for Recovery, we use cutting-edge therapies to treat people with all kinds of addictions and mental illnesses including alcohol abuse, drug abuse, and opiate addiction as well as depression, anxiety disorders such as PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) or OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder), eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa or bulimia nervosa, bipolar disorder or schizophrenia. For more information, call a confidential counselor today.

Find DBT Therapy in Indiana

DBT is a powerful cognitive therapy that can be extremely helpful when used alongside other types of addiction treatment. DBT also has been shown to help people with substance abuse issues avoid relapses in their recovery, reduce undesirable behaviors associated with mental illness, and improve relationships between partners, friends, and family.

Overall, DBT has an encouraging number of benefits for the person experiencing intense emotional states and problematic behavior.

DBT provides the skills needed to conquer trauma, addiction, and challenges.
DBT helps people find a balanced lifestyle by overcoming conflict.
DBT covers topics such as abandonment, self-harm, suicide ideation, binge eating.
DBT gives an opportunity to learn healthier behaviors.
DBT teaches new coping skills and methods for distress tolerance.
DBT reduces the need for medication.
DBT minimizes the impact of catastrophic thinking.

Indiana Center for Recovery helps clients overcome substance abuse problems by integrating these benefits into our own unique version of Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT). DBT therapies are offered in a one-on-one setting as well as a group setting for those looking to find relief from social anxiety or learn how to deal with conflict in a healthy way.

About Indiana Center for Recovery

Indiana Center for Recovery is committed to providing the best addiction treatment. Our goal is to help people get on the path of recovery, and lead them towards a better future. We offer evidence-based treatments that work, including medication-assisted therapy (MAT) for opioid use disorder, which has been shown in clinical trials to be effective at reducing relapse rates by 50% or more when combined with counseling like DBT.

We are grateful that our patients choose us as their primary mental health and rehab center because they know we will provide them with compassion, support, and personalized care every step of the way. They also know they will leave here knowing how to live a healthier life without drugs or alcohol—and confident they can stay sober long enough to succeed.

Are You Struggling with BPD and Addiction?

You’re not alone. We know that addiction is a difficult and complex disease to overcome, but we also know that recovery is possible.

Our experienced team of professionals will help you get on the path to sobriety so you can live your best life. We offer comprehensive treatment for drug abuse, alcohol use disorder, mental health disorders, and co-occurring conditions at our state-of-the-art facility in Indianapolis.

If you or someone you love struggles with substance abuse or other mental health issues like depression or anxiety, please don’t hesitate to contact us today! Morning, afternoon, or evening – we are here 24/7/365 for all of our patients and their families who need us most.

Call to explore our programs and discover what ideal recovery could look like for you if you struggle with BPD, addiction, or another co-occurring disorder.