DBT Therapy in Philadelphia: Distraction-How Contributing Can Help

DBT in Philadelphia: Contributing to Help You Tolerate Problems

It’s been several days since you and your partner split. He told you that he couldn’t take it anymore- the fighting, yelling, and your constant moodiness. In the heat of the moment, you told him to get out and at the time, you meant it.

Almost immediately you regretted it.

Now, you’re sitting at home, feeling miserable. You feel so lonely and so unbelievably sad. You felt so angry at him and now that anger is directed at yourself- for blowing up at the one guy you felt would always be there.

The worst part is the guilt; the guilt for saying what you did. You just can’t stop replaying the events of that night- the hateful words; the anger… Now, he’s gone and you’re not sure he’ll ever come back; if you’ll ever even see him again. You miss him so much and the agony you feel inside is so ungodly painful.

It feels like it’s killing you.

You’ve already called in sick to work since it happened. You’re so consumed by your emotional pain and yet you know you can’t continue to call off work. As the project manager, people depend on you and you can’t afford to lose your job. But, the grief and loneliness feel like they will never end… You feel so helpless. 

As a DBT therapist, I know that you need to experience your emotions.

Again, it’s super essential that you allow yourself to feel the feels. Grief, sadness, and loneliness all need to be processed - even though it really, really sucks.  

And yet, the reality is that you don’t have to experience and process your emotions all the time.

The reality is that even though you are stricken by all the pain, life continues to happen all around you. You still have responsibilities and things that need to be taken care of.

It’s just not effective to be miserable all the time.

Dialectical Behavior Therapy teaches how to tolerate emotional crises. In fact, there’s a whole module in DBT Skills Training devoted to Distress Tolerance Skills. The idea here is that when your world is rocked and turned upside-down, you can’t afford to make things worse.

Sometimes it makes sense and is more effective to distract yourself when you’re feeling stuck and consumed by negative, painful, emotions. Using DBT Distress Tolerance Skills can help you become unstuck from the emotional pain. Specifically, I’m referring to the DBT skill of Distracting with ACCEPTS.

Last week, I dove into the “A” in ACCEPTS. You can read that full blog post HERE. Today’s post is focusing on the first “C” in DBT ACCEPTS.

DBT Skills Training & using distraction 

As I’ve said before, it’s essential that you allow yourself to experience all of your feelings. And yet, there’s just no point in being miserable all of the time.

“C” in DBT ACCEPTS stands for “contributing”. DBT’s Contributing Skill is particularly helpful when you’re feeling alone and very sad. As human beings, most of us experience and have a need for compassion. Sometimes when you’re all wrapped up in your own emotional distress, contributing to someone else’s life can be extremely powerful.

Contributing is an effective way to use the DBT Distraction Skill. When you’re able to contribute to someone else’s life, doing so serves as a distraction from your own current feelings of guilt, sadness, grief, loneliness, helplessness, and overall misery. Not only that, but it can help you feel more empowered and can lower your own level of distress.

DBT Distracting by Contributing

Sitting and stewing about missing your boyfriend will not increase the likelihood he’ll return. Nor is it helpful to risk losing your job by continuing to call off from work. It’s just not effective to continue to think about your relationship and how upset you are. 

As I’ve already established, contributing to someone else’s life can help to distract you from your own problems and help you get out of your own head. When you can’t do anything about your stressor and the day-to-day stuff still needs to get done, I’ve provided some examples that you can try.

Here are some ideas I’ve used or my clients have used for distraction by contributing. As a side note, you will see that contributing doesn’t have to be some huge thing.

Putting the DBT contribution skill into practice.

• Become a volunteer in your child’s elementary school classroom or chaperone an upcoming field trip.

• Take a friend’s dog out for a walk (I personally love doing this.)

• Pick up the phone and reach out to someone you haven’t talked to in a while to let them know you’re thinking of them.

• Go through your closet and donate things you don’t use or wear anymore.

• Visit an elderly neighbor or family member (In college, I used to volunteer at a local senior center and discovered how much I enjoyed socializing with the senior citizens there.)

When you’re able to contribute to someone else’s life and well-being, it provides an opportunity to refocus your attention away from your own problems. It can be a pretty amazing thing when you completely throw yourself into doing something for someone else and end up forgetting your own sh*t for a little while. Not only that, for a lot of people, contributing also can help you boost your own self-respect, which is a pretty cool by-product of contributing. I mean, who wouldn’t want that?

DBT Therapy in Philadelphia

If you’re someone who feels your emotions deeply and needs help learning how to effectively deal with painful problems, Dialectical Behavior Therapy can help. DBT is the gold standard treatment for people who have problems regulating their emotions, behavior, and relationships. You do not need to be enslaved by your overwhelming, debilitating emotions, intense anxiety, or relationships that only bring pain.

Philadelphia BPD Treatment

As a DBT therapist, I provide standard, outpatient, Dialectical Behavior Therapy. I specialize in helping adults who are desperate for relief but don’t know how to get out of their own personal hell. I specialize in therapy for Borderline Personality Disorder and anxiety treatment.

If you’re tired of your emotions and relationships causing problems, please reach out today. I offer DBT therapy consultations. You can book your consult for DBT therapy in Philadelphia by clicking HERE.