How to Talk About Values in a DBT Session
Key Points
- A value is a characteristic felt to be essential to who you are.
- Doing a values inventory, or setting up what’s negotiable and what’s not, helps people see who they are.
- Values work can be a game-changing experience in therapy.
Materials Downloads
$177
Transcript
Now, I want to take just a second to talk about values, because this is an area that many clinicians struggle with. How do I work with values with clients? And also clients struggle with, “How do I even identify what my values are?”
So this is what I talk about doing, is, imagine a white board up in front of you, and at the top of it just write the word ‘values’. And across the center of it, create two sides. So it doesn’t matter if it’s vertical or horizontal. On one side, I want you to write down the word ‘negotiable’. And on the other side, I want you to write down ‘non-negotiable’.
Carlson, M. R. (2017). CBT for psychological well-being in cancer: A skills training manual integrating DBT, ACT, behavioral activation and motivational interviewing. John Wiley & Sons Ltd.,Carlson, M. R. (2014). CBT for chronic pain and psychological well-being: A skills training manual integrating DBT, ACT, behavioral activation and motivational interviewing. John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
Under ‘negotiable’, I just tell people, “What are things that you find that you’re pretty easygoing on? I’ll give you an example. Let’s see, fairness. I think fairness is pretty negotiable because in one situation something might be fair, and in another situation the same thing might be unfair. I can see that thing being on both sides, where it can be a non-negotiable thing of fairness, that there are times where I will stand by that and I will not move because fair is the right thing in this situation. Or it might be, yeah, it’s not that important. There are other things that are a priority here. That’s negotiable. So fairness can be on both sides, I could see.
Carlson, M. R. (2017). CBT for psychological well-being in cancer: A skills training manual integrating DBT, ACT, behavioral activation and motivational interviewing. John Wiley & Sons Ltd.,Carlson, M. R. (2014). CBT for chronic pain and psychological well-being: A skills training manual integrating DBT, ACT, behavioral activation and motivational interviewing. John Wiley & Sons Ltd.