What are the Goals of DBT

The big overarching goal of DBT is to help clients build lives that they experience as worth living. And using the life skills taught in DBT is a key factor in building that life. To do this DBT combines dialectical elements of both 1. Acceptance of reality and 2. Encouraging Change as we will review soon.

Though there are many dialectical assumptions in DBT. The main one is that clients are doing the best they can at any given moment in time. And also, that they must learn new behaviors in all relevant contexts. As skills don't always transfer between contexts.

So, first clients come to a place of acceptance of their reality. And while learning acceptance they are practicing skills that help them implement changes to this reality.

Skills training in DBT involves teaching clients’ strategies to approach situations in life using new behavioral approaches. It’s about providing the tools that are needed to accept and tolerate difficult life circumstances, while actively changing the things we are able to change - all in the effort of building a life worth living. Thus, the implementation of skills is how the client builds this life.

Key Take Aways:

"To help people build lives that they experience as worth living"

-Linehan & Wilks, 2015

• Combine acceptance with change.

• First, clients come to a place of acceptance of their reality.

• Then while practicing skills they implement the steps needed for change to occur.

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