Cognitive Behavioral Services of Connecticut

What is Mindfulness?  Mindfulness is awareness, cultivated by paying attention in a particular way, moment to moment, and without judgement.  Mindfulness allow us to experience reality as it is.  When we are mindful, we are able to acknowledge our feelings and thoughts at the present moment without judging them, and by doing so, we allow curiosity, openness, acceptance, and compassion into our immediate experience. 

What is Distress Tolerance?  It contains two skill sets, crisis survival skills and reality acceptance skills.  The crisis survival skills emphasize changing one’s immediate experience by distracting, self-soothing, improving the moment, considering pros and cons, and tipping one’s body chemistry to rapidly reduce extreme arousal.  Reality acceptance skills help one learn how to fully accept painful circumstances that cannot be changed, without avoiding or fighting them. 

What is Emotion Regulation?  Emotion Regulation skills address the individual’s biological vulnerability to emotion dysregulation.  People struggling with chronic and significant emotion regulation difficulties often display three fundamental features: being sensitive to emotional cues (triggers), intense emotional reactions to cues, and slower return to baseline mood.  This module was designed to address these temperamental factors.    

What is Interpersonal Effectiveness?  It focuses on helping people to: obtain what they want while maintaining their relationship and self-respect; be assertive and effective in solving interpersonal problems; decrease social isolation; skillfully end destructive and unhealthy relationships; and to balance acceptance and change in relationships. 

What is “Walking The Middle Path”?  This module was designed by adolescent DBT experts Drs. Alec Miller and Jill Rathus.  It aims to address re-occurring adolescent-family conflicts and issues.  It is later utilized as part of the adult DBT skill training.  By learning to think and act dialectically, parents and children team up and consider alternative points of view.  When parents and children work together instead of working against one another from extreme points of view, the family becomes “unstuck.”  Families are able to move forward with new understanding and compassion toward each family member, and can find new ways to problem solve together.