In our last several +1s (here, here and here), we’ve been chatting about Marsha Linehan and her incredibly Heroic story as told in her memoir: Building a Life Worth Living.
I mentioned the fact that I got the book after Peter Attia recommended Marsha’s therapeutic model. It’s called “Dialectical Behavior Therapy” or “DBT” for short.
Attia found her approach life-changingly helpful to optimize his emotional health—which, I repeat, he considers an absolutely essential component to optimizing our longevity such that we can live longer AND ENJOY that longer life.
So…
Today I want to chat more about Dialectical Behavior Therapy.
Let’s get to work.
The first thing to know is that, although DBT was originally created to help people with suicidal ideation and self-harm behaviors “build a life worth living” it has evolved to help people deal with a range of issues—from addiction recovery to simply creating a GREAT life.
Marsha has trained over 10,000 therapists worldwide in DBT. In 2011, the editors of Time magazine named DBT one of the 100 most important new science ideas of our time.
Now…
Let’s define DBT.
Marsha tells us: “Two things make DBT unique. The first is the dynamic balance between acceptance of oneself and one’s situation in life, on the one hand, and embracing change toward a better life, on the other. (That is what ‘dialectics’ means—the balance of opposites and the coming to a synthesis.) Traditional psychotherapy focuses primarily on helping people change their behaviors, replacing negative behaviors with positive behaviors.”
She continues by saying: “The solution I arrived at was to find a way to balance both acceptance and change, a dynamic dance between the two: back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. This balance between pursuing change strategies and pursuing acceptance strategies is a basis of DBT, and unique to DBT. This emphasis on acceptance as a counterbalance to change flows directly from the integration of Eastern (Zen) practice, as I experienced it, and Western psychological practice.”
And: “The second aspect of DBT that makes it unique is the inclusion of mindfulness practice as a therapeutic skill, a first in psychotherapy. This, too, came from my experience with Zen practice. At the time (the mid-1980s), mindfulness was something of an arcane subject, often dismissed as too ‘New Agey’ to be taken seriously, particularly in academic circles. Now, as I’m sure you know, mindfulness is everywhere, not only in psychotherapy but also in health care, business, education, sports, even the military.”
Once again…
DBT is short for “Dialectical Behavior Therapy.”
Marsha tells us that the word dialectic can be defined as “a method of examining and discussing opposing ideas in order to find the truth.”
She says: “I like to think of it as ‘the tension, or synthesis, between opposites.”
And: “Dialectical Behavior Therapy seemed an appropriate name, reflecting as it does the tension between seeking change in a person and encouraging them to embrace acceptance.”
So, to repeat…
The “dialectic” of DBT is between SEEKING CHANGE *and* ACCEPTANCE.
Marsha also says: “Dialectics allows opposites to coexist: you can be weak and you can be strong, you can be happy and you can be sad. In the dialectical worldview, everything is in a constant state of change. There is no absolute truth, and no relative truth, either; no absolute right or wrong. Truth evolves over time. Values that were held in the past might not be held in the present. Dialectics is the process of seeking the truth in the moment, drawing on a synthesis of opposites.”
Marsha walks us through how important mindfulness is to DBT. She was inspired by the Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh and his great book The Miracle of Mindfulness but wasn’t ready to make mindfulness a central part of her work until she saw how another Heroic psychologist Ellen Langer described it in her book Mindfulness.
For the record, Marsha defines mindfulness as “the act of consciously focusing the mind in the present moment, without judgment and without attachment to the moment.”
She says: “Mindfulness practice is the repeated effort of bringing the mind back to awareness of the present moment; it includes the repeated effort of letting go of judgments and letting go of attachment to current thoughts, emotions, sensations, activities, events, or life situations.”
And…
That’s Today’s +1.
If you feel so inspired…
Let’s do a quick little dialectical work…
Take a moment to ACCEPT the reality of your current life.
Now…
Take a moment to COMMIT TO CHANGING what you know needs changing in your life.
Got it?
Awesome.
Now…
Let’s get more specific…
What’s ONE SPECIFIC THING YOU KNOW YOU NEED TO ACCEPT?
And…
What’s ONE SPECIFIC THING YOU KNOW YOU NEED TO CHANGE?
Got it?
Awesome.
Now…
How can you put that wisdom to practice TODAY?
P.S. For more wisdom on Zen, check out our Notes on Thich Nhat Hanh’s Silence, Fear, No Mud, No Lotus, and Peace Is Every Step. Plus Jon Kabat-Zinn’s Wherever You Go, There You Are, Joko Beck’s Everyday Zen, and David Reynold’s Constructive Living.
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