#2: Introduction to Mindfulness and the Wise Mind

Would you like to know more about DBT and where it all started? In today's episode, Marielle and Ed will be looking into the background and development of DBT. They will discuss dialectics and the concept of Wise Mind and give an introduction to mindfulness. Tune in to find out more.

Dialectics is about balancing two things that could be seen as opposite, yet also as true. Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) was created towards the end of the 1980s, by Marsha Linehan, who started out doing Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT) with suicidal and self-harming clients. She later added the dialectical component to more effectively treat people experiencing intense emotional suffering.

Show Highlights:

• Why Ed finds dialectics to be helpful for intense suffering.
• Ed defines the term 'dialectics'.
• Always balancing acceptance and change with dialectics.
• With dialectics, two opposing things can be true at the same time.
• Moving away from 'black-and-white' thinking.
• DBT has been effective in treating people with different kinds of emotional dysregulation.
• Wise mind is an ideal state, a work in progress, and an internal sense of doing the right thing, even if it's hard.
• Wise mind is the combination of our Emotion Mind and our Reasonable mind.
• What Emotion Mind looks like.
• What Reasonable Mind looks like.
• Wise Mind can lead us to that place of intuition or inspiration.
• There are many ways to practice mindfulness.
• Mindfulness helps us to access Wise Mind.
• Ed gives a mindfulness breathing exercise to help you to access Wise Mind.
• Mindfulness is the foundational skill of DBT.
• The mindfulness that is practiced in DBT isn't meditation.
• What is mindfulness?
• Depression lives in the past.
• Much of our distress comes from focusing on the past or the future and not on the present moment.
• Mindfulness allows for choice.
• Mindfulness is both external and internal.
• Dealing with some of the problems with practicing mindfulness.

Resource:

Book by Marsha Linehan - DBT Skills Training Handouts and Worksheets

Links:

You can find us online at https://bayareadbtcc.com/

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Please note that questions, and this podcast in general, are not a substitute for individual mental health treatment.