Radical Acceptance & Real-Life Tools: Why DBT Works
If you’ve ever felt like your emotions are running the show, you’re not alone. Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) is designed to give you tools to navigate those big feelings with more ease. Whether it’s handling stress, building healthier relationships, or finding calm in the middle of chaos, DBT offers practical skills—like mindfulness and Radical Acceptance—that can help you feel more grounded and supported in daily life.
By Wallace Colvin, Counselor (MA)
WHAT IS DBT?
Dialectical Behavior Therapy is a modality that is used by therapist to help people who struggle with emotional regulation and emotional reactivity, accepting challenging situations, interpersonal relationships, and Borderline Personality Disorder.
WHAT IS IT USED FOR?
DBT was created by Marsha Linehan in efforts to treat people who have a plethora of problems including treatment for suicidal women. DBT is comprised of evidence-based cognitive-behavioral interventions that are designed for suicidal behavior. Eventually this treatment evolved to treat depression, anxiety, stress, dealing with challenging situations, interpersonal issues, emotional regulation, along with treating Borderline Personality Disorder.
EXAMPLE OF DBT TECHNIQUES AND WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE USED IN THERAPY
DBT has four core categories (interpersonal effectiveness, distress tolerance, emotional regulation, and mindfulness). These categories have a plethora of different coping skills: self-soothing, radical acceptance, emotion diaries, wise mind, and many other techniques. If we take Radical Acceptance and utilize it in session— the goal is to teach the client to fully accept something mentally and emotionally. It’s about accepting something whether you approve of it happening or not.
Example: You lose your job. One may typically think “wow this isn't fair I worked so hard and did everything right.” Radical Acceptance- “I am not happy about this, but this was not in my control. It was not personal and there are other jobs that I’m qualified for.” This is how a therapist would go about using radical acceptance in a session with a client who is struggling with accepting their circumstances.
Wallace believes that many of life’s challenges stem from childhood trauma and negative thought patterns which often lead to depression, anxiety and other trauma based symptoms. As a therapist, Wallace is direct and honest while simultaneously holding deep compassion and empathy. In session, Wallace creates a trusting and non-judgmental space where clients can share their unique struggles and challenge maladaptive thoughts thus making space to create new beliefs about oneself, find new ways of engaging with others and cultivating new behaviors. While not working, Wallace enjoys cooking, working out, listening to music, spending time with friends, and playing video games.
Introducing Our Psychotherapy Program
Five Point Holistic Health is excited to announce an additional service in our clinic: psychotherapy! Our psychotherapy program is being led by Jessica Weisbach, LCSW. Jessica has over 15 years of experience working in mental health in Chicago. Her career began as a high school social worker supporting adolescents and their families. She transitioned to working with adults, in both a group practice and her own private practice until a recent serendipitous encounter connected her with Five Point.
You can read more about Jessica on our website. As mental health services have been in high demand during the pandemic, she is currently not accepting new clients. If you need support in finding a therapist, please reach out to Jessica at jessica@fivepoinpointholistic.com and she’ll be glad to assist in finding appropriate referrals.
However, we currently growing this program and hope to accept psychotherapy clients by late spring or early summer. We are eager to integrate psychotherapy services into the new space and to expand the mental health services offered.
We are HIRING!
Are you or anyone you know interested in being a part of this growing psychotherapy practice in our holistic health clinic? We are seeking to hire an additional psychotherapist as we expand our program and grow into our new space! Our program will include general psychotherapy for individuals, couples and families. In our new space, we also plan to offer a variety of group work. Groups are an essential part of healing in community, and they also create an avenue for more affordable mental health support. The psychotherapy program will follow our tiered pricing model and accept multiple insurance carriers, while also having multiple spaces for needs-based clients. We’re eager to find ways to collaborate across healing modalities at Five Point to support clients in health through more integrated care, workshops, classes, etc.
If you or anyone you know might be a good fit for our program, you can find our job posting.