DBT Tools for Trauma: The TOM
United States Department of Homeland Security
Key Points
- Once clients become more aware and accepting of thoughts, help them actively change those thoughts.
- TOM stands for thought, opposite, middle.
- Identify an ineffective thought, then the opposite thought, then a thought more in the middle.
- Help clients plant a new thought without confronting the original thought.
- Any middle thought is already dialectical since it is a different perspective from the original thought.
- It is important that clients come up with the middle thought on their own.
