By Hadley Gavin
For many mental illnesses psychotherapy is the best option. CBT or cognitive behavioral therapy is the most common kind. It is also popular as ‘talk’ therapy. It focuses on how to change your thoughts and frame them differently. For example, if your think that ‘I cannot do anything right, I am a failure, so no one will love me’ then CBT helps to use logical reasons and flip this script. Control your way of thinking instead of letting them control you.
Dialectical Behavioral therapy or DBT is specific type of CBT. DBT treats mental illness that cannot be treated efficiently with CBT. DBT training focuses on helping people suffering from extreme emotional conditions, which is unhealthy to them and their loved ones.
CBT vs. DBT
Difference between CBT and DBT will help you identify, which one is better for your condition. All mental illnesses don’t respond similarly to a treatment. One therapy, which works wonders for anxiety and depression can worsen personality disorders or binge eating issue.
CBT has proven to be very effective on depression, so has the potential to make unhappiness and melancholy retreat into remission. It has even been beneficial in anxiety treatment because patients are educated to control their emotions. OCD, panic attacks, phobias, PTSD, and insomnia are other mental illnesses, which can be treated with CBT.
DBT is a form of CBT designed to treat people suffering from borderline personality disorder. People learn to modify their behavior patterns rather than thinking or talking about the problem they are besieged with.
Patient’s impulsive behavior and intense emotional reactions can be described as devastating feel of agony and refusal, the feel of trotting through a world jam-packed with barbs and wires. DBT is effective for people combatting with self-harm behaviors like suicidal thoughts. Even sexual trauma survivors respond well with DBT therapy.
Difference in treatment methods
CBT concentrates on how your feelings, thoughts and behavior influence one another, whereas DBT works towards regulating emotions, being mindful and accepting situation as it is.
CBT gives patient’s ability to identify when their thinking may become disturbing and how they can reverse those thoughts, while DBT helps patients find ways to manage/regulate emotions, feel safe, and accept themselves.
Which therapy is right – CBT or DBT?
A therapist or psychiatrist is the best person to tell you which therapy is suitable for your condition. They will consider your medical history, symptoms, and your therapy-requirement goals, so as to diagnose your condition as well as recommend which is right – CBT or DBT.
