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DBT for Bipolar Disorder: 4 Dialect Dilemmas and Distress Tolerance Skills
United States Department of Homeland Security
Key Points
- When teaching DBT concepts to our clients, it’s important to utilize user-friendly language as opposed to technical jargon.
- It’s more important to focus on the specific symptoms of each unique client than the actual diagnosis.
- Clients with bipolar disorder tend to face 4 common “dialectical dilemmas”:
- Learning to both accept the disorder while also becoming willing to make the necessary changes to mitigate the disorder.
- Learning the middle path between overregulation vs underregulation of their symptoms.
- Finding the balance between completely denying the disorder vs allowing the disorder to completely define you.
- Finding the middle ground between adequately preparing for future manic or depressive episodes vs learning to go with the flow.
