Dialectical Behavioral Therapy/Emotion Regulation Skills

Emotion Regulation

Borderline and suicidal individuals are emotionally intense and labile – frequently angry, intensely frustrated, depressed, and anxious. This suggests that borderline clients might benefit from help in learning to regulate their emotions. Dialectical behavior therapy skills for emotion regulation include:


 * Identifying and labeling emotions
 * Understanding the function of emotions
 * Identifying obstacles to changing emotions
 * Reducing vulnerability to “emotion mind”
 * Increasing positive emotional events
 * Increasing mindfulness to current emotions
 * Taking opposite action
 * Applying distress tolerance techniques