Your Fights Are Too Intense? These DBT Skills Will Help!
Today, I want to delve into an amazing set of skills for anyone who struggles with intense conflict in their relationships or who has difficulty calming their own internal emotional storms. In our daily lives, emotions often behave like a volume knob, sometimes turned to deafening levels by anger, sadness, or fear. These overwhelming emotions, often stemming from early life experiences or traumatic events, can feel like a tsunami, threatening to sweep us away and make us feel powerless to do anything. Suppressing these feelings might seem the safest option, but it often leads to another problematic effect, making emotions even more overwhelming.
Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) is a therapeutic approach that has proven to be a guide of hope for anyone struggling with the intense emotional waves that seem to keep smacking them in the face despite their best attempts at "staying calm". As a couples therapist, I have FREQUENTLY recommended DBT to my couples, and many of our other therapists at Couples Counseling ATL do the same. Let me explain why it could be a game-changer for your relationship and personal well-being.
Personally, I wish I'd been taught DBT skills as a kid, or at least by my teen years, when the hormonal emotional intensity began as it does for most of us. DBT skills should be called "emotional skills for life". Or something like "How to Navigate the Emotional Tsunami"! It would have saved me a lot of grief, and my relationships would have probably been saved from some damage, too.
Developed by the pioneering Marsha Linehan in the 1990s, DBT is more than just therapy; it's a set of skills designed to empower you to manage your overwhelming emotions more effectively. It's not about doing what feels best; it's about learning to do what is most EFFECTIVE, whether that is not doing damage to your relationship, if you have a habit of saying things when you're angry that you later regret and need to learn how to prevent that, or you are too restricted about your emotions, hold too much in, and suffer in silence while your partner never really knows you. Many of us were not taught as children how to handle our emotions in a way that helps us handle our own distress without losing control, even in the face of the most powerful emotional storms. Many of us learned to cope the best way we knew how, either exploding emotionally or holding too much in, neither of which is healthy for us personally, or for our partners.
So fast forward to today, and after being intensively trained in DBT over a decade ago, and then I got certified in Gottman Method Couples therapy. I've always loved helping couples who are drowning in intense emotions to survive and then thrive without drowning each other in the process. I know the power of both great couples therapy and great DBT skills training can help these couples in particular.
Now that I'm mainly on (an extended!) maternity leave, and I don't see clients right now, I have really been thinking about many of these couples who need couples therapy the most but who are struggling so much that most couples therapists won't even see them because their emotional intensity and fighting can get out of control and scare a lot of couples therapists. When I attend our weekly staff meetings, the sheer number of couples in need of emotional regulation skills is overwhelming, sometimes more formal DBT skills training is even needed as a prerequisite before even starting couples therapy. For example, if the intensity of the conflict is so high that couples are not able to take direction from the couples therapist, or one individual is struggling with verbally aggressive or self-harming urges they have difficulty controlling, we often refer out to local DBT experts, and we also have a few members of our staff who have been intensively trained and can take on a small number of individuals for DBT training before they begin couples therapy (i.e. Liz Clements, LCSW, who is amazing, but I'm clearly biased). Anyways...
DBT equips individuals with four essential skill sets, including mindfulness, emotion regulation, interpersonal effectiveness, distress tolerance skills. For many couples I recommend it for the following reasons, as well as many, many more, all of which work great along with an expert in couples therapy:
To manage intense emotions. DBT teaches skills for managing emotions, such as distress tolerance, emotional regulation, and mindfulness. These skills can be especially helpful for couples who struggle with intense emotions, such as anger, anxiety, or depression.
To improve communication. DBT also teaches interpersonal effectiveness skills, which can help couples communicate more effectively and assertively. This can be especially helpful for couples who have difficulty communicating their needs and feelings to each other.
To reduce conflict. DBT skills can help couples to reduce conflict and resolve disagreements in a more constructive way. This is because DBT teaches skills for listening to each other, respecting each other's perspectives, and finding compromise.
To build a stronger relationship. DBT skills can help couples to build a stronger relationship by improving communication, reducing conflict, and increasing emotional intimacy.
The Power of DBT: Real-Life Example
Let me give you an example of a couple I helped using both Gottman Method and DBT we'll call Andrea and David (names changed), a couple who, like many of us, were experiencing emotional turbulence threatening the stability of their relationship long before they showed up at my office. Alarm bells were ringing that they'd need "more" than just couples therapy when I completed our thorough "gold standard" Gottman Assessment, including 1) the 400 item questionnaire via the Gottman Institute 2) my interviews and observations of them together, 3) my interviews and observations of them alone, and finally, and most telling, 4) their 10 minute "conflict exercise" that I ask every couple, where they wear pulse oximeters and I record them to later watch themselves; they could barely start the discussion without their conversation going off the rails, contempt blazing, and their heart rates were well into the 110 bpm (wayyyy too high to have a constructive, but emotional conversation).
For most people, when your heart rate is above 100 and you're trying to have a productive conversation, your primal limbic system takes over, most of us become toddlers at best in our emotional regulation capacity, and the frontal lobe (the adult, reasonable part of your brain) goes offline and is no longer accessible. Talking is futile. It's useless to talk until your physiology gets back into what's called "a window of tolerance" where it can be intense, but you're not in flooded "fight or flight" mode. They were calling each other names, couldn't take instruction from me without me standing up and getting in their face. They were both clearly hurt and felt righteously indignant, but they couldn't help themselves from hurling verbal bombs at each other from over my shoulder like two kids brawling afterschool. I wondered if they were lying about their arguments not escalating further at home. If they fought like this in front of me, I knew it was likely even worse at home. They admitted to some mutual physical aggression, but alone, neither was truly scared of the other and I had ruled out characterological interpersonal violence (one person being the primary aggressor, like an abuser.
They clearly loved each other intensely, were committed, but were headed towards divorce court, co-parenting agreements, nasty text exchanges, and a lifetime of resentment soon if they couldn't stop damaging each other and their bond. So I told them that we had to triage and put a tourniquet on the bleeding, or their relationship would die. I recommended physical separation (one person living in an apartment) while the other lived at home, but only temporarily. I told them that we can't possibly get to what they want to talk about (i.e. betrayals, hurts, communication problems, sex, etc) until we get you the emotional first aid and fast! I really liked them both and could relate to the emotional intensity (as I said, I needed DBT skills when I was younger, too!), and although I'd love to work with them, I said I'd only do it on one condition... I told them, "You both have to finish a full round of DBT skills training, either individually or in a group setting but not together, to get more emotional regulation skills to handle the intensity of your emotions and communication so that we can even consider doing couples therapy".
They agreed with me that that some fights, having gotten out of hand, might spiral further if we delved into even more intense emotional work required in couples therapy and they don't have the skills to keep it from crossing lines. They wanted to be able to promise that they wouldn't escalate, but they couldn't. They really didn't want to pause couples therapy to do the DBT skills but they at least listened to my advice. So I told them that if you do this, I'll work with you. Not everyone takes my advice on this matter, and not all couples therapists would require this, but thankfully this couple took my advice and benefited from it immensely.
Thankfully, when they finally embraced DBT skills training, and signed a release for me to speak with their DBT skills therapists, they were able to come back to work with me for an entire year after that. In DBT, they started with basic mindfulness, where they learned about becoming more aware to recognize triggers and respond rather than react. They learned emotion regulation techniques to diffuse heated arguments, fostering a more peaceful home environment. Interpersonal effectiveness skills empowered them to express their needs and boundaries, enhancing their communication and understanding. They had the basic emotional regulation skills to stay in that window of tolerance without it escalating to an aggressive or destructive place.
In couples therapy, we were finally able to work through healing past hurts, repairing damage,
Your Journey with DBT Could Begin Here
We believe that DBT is not just a therapeutic approach but a life skill. At Couples Counseling ATL, we're passionate about providing you with the tools to navigate emotional storms and emerge stronger. If you're curious about how DBT can transform your life and relationship, we invite you to reach out. Let's embark on this transformative journey together. We have DBT-trained therapists on our staff, and we also know many great DBT experts in our Atlanta community as well!
