Coping Ahead for the Holidays

By Elizabeth Gellman, Psy.D.

For many of us, this time of year presents as a dialectic. A dialectic teaches us that two things that seem like opposites can both be true; while the holiday season may be a time of joy, celebration, and getting together with loved ones, it can also bring about intense emotions and experiences.  In order to be most prepared for these situations, we can practice the DBT skill of Coping Ahead. The Coping Ahead skill is part of the emotion regulation module of DBT and it is used to help us build our "emotional cushion" to reduce our vulnerability to intense emotions.  We can cope ahead by anticipating which situations may be difficult and preparing what we will say or how we will act in these moments to manage our emotions most effectively.  Coping ahead works best when we rehearse our plan over and over or imagine the exact steps we will take or DBT skills we will use in upcoming situations.

Here are some ways to Cope Ahead for this holiday season:

1. Recognize which situations may trigger intense emotions. These may be situations that occur year after year or new circumstances that you are anticipating for the first time (i.e., first holiday after the loss of a loved one).  Be mindful of your emotions and allow yourself to experience emotions as they come, without judgment.

2. Plan Ahead. Create a schedule and budget for yourself when doing holiday shopping or prepping for events.  Create a meal plan before holiday parties so that you do not regret your choices or become filled with guilt.  Prepare how you may answer all the "wrong" questions asked by various family members.  Schedule activities for yourself, volunteer, or obtain support if this is a time when you may feel lonely.

3. Engage in pleasant and relaxing activities outside of planning and attending holiday celebrations.  Make time for yourself.  Plan soothing and relaxing activities following what you anticipate may be a stressful event. 

4. Engage in self-care. Focus on caring for yourself by using the DBT PLEASE Skill. The PLEASE skill helps reduce our emotional vulnerability by making sure we treat PhysicaL illness, balance Eating, Avoid mood altering drugs, balance Sleep, and get Exercise.

5. Let go of expectations and fully participate. Accept that the holidays may bring up emotions of anger, sadness, joy, and loneliness.  Accept that family members are who they are and we cannot control what they say or do.  Engage in holiday activities and conversations without expectation or judgment.  Be in the present moment. 

Remember, these are just some ways to plan ahead for the holidays.  We encourage you to come up with additional ways to cope ahead that will be most effective for you.  We wish everyone a safe and healthy holiday and new year!

NY Times Article on Self-Soothing

Click here to read a recent article in the New York Times about research on loneliness and self soothing.  We teach self soothing in DBT as a way to tolerate distress without making things worse.  The article discusses recent research showing that touching something warm (like a cup of coffee) after feeling rejected can help module our emotions.

This Week in Adolescent and Family DBT Group

This week in Adolescent and Family DBT group, we reviewed Self-Soothing and taught IMPROVE the Moment.  IMPROVE the moment stands for using Imagery (imagining relaxing scenes), Meaning (finding some meaning in the pain), Prayer (opening your heart to a supreme being), Relaxation (relaxing your muscles), One thing in the moment (focusing your entire attention on what you are doing right now), take a brief Vacation (taking a quick break from a difficult situation), and Encouragement (cheerleading yourself).  The homework is to practice using one IMPROVE the moment skill during the week when you feel negative emotions.

This week in Adult DBT Group

This week in Adult DBT Group we began the Mindfulness module and taught the Three States of Mind (Emotion mind, Reasonable mind, and Wise mind).  Emotion mind is when our emotions guide our thoughts and actions; we tend to ignore problem solving, logic, and possible consequences.  Reasonable mind occurs when we focus on just the facts and ignore our emotions.  Wise mind combines the other two states of mind; it involves "hitting the pause button" and incorporates both emotion and reason.  Wise mind occurs when you know something to be true or valid deep down inside of you.  Each of our wise minds may be different.  When we act based on our wise mind, we make decisions that we still feel good about down the road.  

Mindfulness Quote of the Week

"The only man who never makes a mistake is the man who never does anything."  -Theodore Roosevelt

Mindfulness Quote of the Week

“Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.” -Lao Tzu

Post Doctoral Fellowship Position at CCDBT

*POST-DOCTORAL FELLOWSHIP IN DIALECTICAL AND COGNITIVE BEHAVIOR THERAPY
AT THE CENTER FOR COGNITIVE & DIALECTICAL BEHAVIOR THERAPY, LONG ISLAND,
NEW YORK
*
The Center for Cognitive & Dialectical Behavior Therapy (CCDBT) PLLC invites
applications for a year long post-doctoral fellowship beginning Summer/Fall
2013.

Professional activities will include:

Providing individual and group Dialectical Behavior Therapy for
adolescents, adults, &
families; providing cognitive therapies for depression & anxiety;
providing skills training for parental management of childhood
behavior disorders, and providing Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction
to medically referred clients. Postdoctoral fellows will participate
in program development and administration, monitoring client outcomes,
and conducting research. Specific activities will be determined with
the fellow to match his/her career goals.

The Center for Cognitive & Dialectical Behavior Therapy (CCDBT) PLLC,
is a privately-owned therapy center made up of licensed psychologists
and social workers. The mission of CCDBT is to provide effective and
specialized treatment to people of all ages who are experiencing
difficulties in their lives. The goal of CCDBT is to help people meet
the challenges in their lives and develop the skills needed to deal
with such challenges. For more information, see our website.

.

Applicants will be considered who: Complete a clinical psychology
doctorate by the start date: demonstrate strong potential for a career
in programmatic implementation of DBT, have substantial experience in
CBT and with adolescents and families*. Experience with Dialectical
Behavior Therapy is highly desirable. *Applications are reviewed and
interviews are granted on a rolling admissions basis.

Please email or fax letter of interest, CV, & 3 letters of reference
to Jennifer Byrnes, Ph.D., CCDBT. Email: jbyrnes@ccdbt.com, Fax: (516)
396-2195.

This week in Adolescent and Family DBT Group...

This week in Adolescent and Family DBT we are reviewing the Mindfulness module.  In this module we discussed the 3 States of Mind, the What skills (for What to do to get into Wise Mind), and the How skills (for How to do them).  The homework is to practice mindfulness skills as needed this week.  Next week we will start the Distress Tolerance module.

This week in Adult DBT Group...

This week in Adult DBT Group we are teaching the skill of Radical Acceptance.  This is often one of the most difficult DBT skills that we teach as it asks us to accept a difficult and/or painful reality.  At the same time, Radical Acceptance can also be an incredibly powerful skill in that it helps us to let go of suffering.  This skill may be helpful as we contemplate how to cope with damage or destruction from Hurricane Sandy.

Join us at ISIT DBT!

Several members of the CCDBT staff (including conference program chair Dr. Adam Payne!) will be going to the annual ISIT DBT Conference this week in Maryland.  We are so proud of Adam for organizing this event and we can't wait to attend!  Check out the conference schedule here.

This week in Adolescent DBT Group...

This week in Adolescent DBT Group we reviewed the Mindfulness WHAT skills and learned the mindfulness HOW skills.  The HOW skills have to do with how to get into Wise Mind.  They include:

- Non-Judgmentally - describe the facts, don't evaluate the situation or behavior
-One-Mindfully - doing one thing at a time
-Effectively - doing what works in the situation instead of having to be "right"

This week in Adult DBT Group...

This week in Adult DBT group we reviewed the IMPROVE skill and learned the skill of Pros/Cons.  In Pros/Cons, we look at the pros and cons of both resisting an impulse and acting on the impulse.  We also look at both short-term pros/cons and long-term pros/cons.  This skill can be used both in the moment of an emotional crisis and ahead of time, before a crisis occurs.  When you are in emotion mind, it is especially important to focus on the pros of resisting the impulse and the cons of acting on the impulse. 

CCDBT is open!

We are happy to report that CCDBT has fully restored power and will be open, as normal, today.  We look forward to seeing all of our patients and families.

CCDBT Office Update

Due to a continued power outage, CCDBT will be closed today, 11/1.  We will re-open on Monday, 11/5, regardless of whether or not we have power.  We ask that patients please come prepared in the event that we do not have power.  Please bring a flashlight, if you can.  Thanks and we look forward to seeing everyone next week!

Hurricane Sandy Update

CCDBT will be closed today, Monday, 10/29, and tomorrow, Tuesday, 10/30, due to Hurricane Sandy.  All groups and individual therapy sessions will be canceled.  Check the blog again to see our status for Wednesday.  Hope everyone stays safe.

This Week in Adult DBT Group...

This week in Adult DBT group we reviewed Self-Soothing skills and taughter Improve the Moment skills.  IMPROVE the moment stands for using Imagery (imagining relaxing scenes), Meaning (finding some meaning in the pain), Prayer (opening your heart to a supreme being), Relaxation (relaxing your muscles), One thing in the moment (focusing your entire attention on what you are doing right now), take a brief Vacation (taking a quick break from a difficult situation), and Encouragement (cheerleading yourself).  The homework is to practice using one IMPROVE the moment skill during the week when you feel negative emotions.

This Week in Adolescent and Family Group...

This week in Adolescent and Family DBT group, we reviewed the Three States of Mind (Emotion mind, Reasonable mind, and Wise mind) and taught the What skills.  The What skills have to do with what you can do when you "hit the pause button" of mindfulness.  Mindfulness is an active skill, not passive; therefore when you "hit the pause button" of mindfulness, you can Observe, Describe and Participate.  Observe means to just notice your experience, for example, watching your thoughts and feelings come and go like clouds in the sky.  Describe means to words on your experience, such as, "I feel anxious right now."  Participate means to throw yourself fully into an experience, without being self-conscious.  For example, playing baseball without worrying if you are holding the baseball bat correctly.  The homework for this week is to use one What skill to help get into Wise Mind.

This week in Adult DBT group...

This week in Adult DBT group we began the Distress Tolerance module.  This module helps us to cope with painful feelings and urges, as pain is a part of life and can't always be avoided.  The skill we learned this week was the DISTRACT with ACCEPTS skill.  This skill suggests that when confronted with painful feelings and urges, we distract ourselves with Activities, Contributing to others, Comparisons, other Emotions, Pushing away, other Thoughts, and other Sensations. 

This week in Adolescent and Family group...

This week in our Adolescent and Family group we are reviewing the Middle Path module.  The Middle Path module helps us specifically with navigating adolescent-family dilemmas by using dialectics and validation.  Dialectics is a way of viewing the world in which there is more than one way to see a problem.  Often when families get into a conflict, they go to extremes.  Dialectics helps us to try and find a middle path that honors both sides of a dilemma.  Validation can also help us in a conflict by communicating to another person that their thoughts or feelings make sense and are understandable.  Validation also helps to decrease the emotional intensity of a situation. 

ISITDBT 2012 Conference

We are excited to announce that CCDBT's own Dr. Adam Payne is the program chair for this year's International Society for the Improvement and Teaching of Dialectical Behavior Therapy (ISITDBT) conference on November 15th in National Harbor, MD.  Check out more information on the conference here. We hope to see you there!