Here are a few books and web resources I would recommend to those wanting more information about Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT)
- Book: Cognitive-Behavioral Treatment of Borderline Personality Disorder
and Skills Training Manual for Borderline Personality Disorder. Both published by Guildford Press in 1993 and together represent the 'bible' for all clinicians practising DBT. Not a recommended resource for the general reader, but they are the two definitive works. The Linehan Institute has made a copy of the Preface to the 2nd Edition of the Skills Training Manual availabe prior to publication at the end of 2014. - Self-help book: Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills Workbook: Practical DBT Exercises for Learning Mindfulness, Interpersonal Effectiveness, Emotion Regulation, & Distress Tolerance by Matthew McKay, Jeffrey Wood and Jeffrey Brantley, and published by New Harbinger. Great for anyone who's been through a course of DBT before, or is undergoing one now. Takes you through every skill.
- Book: Dialectical Behavior Therapy in Clinical Practice: Applications across Disorders and Settings by Linda Dimeff, Kelly Koerner and Marsha Linehan. Very much for the clinician, highlights many adaptations of DBT for addictions and eating disorders.
- Blog: From BP to BPD to DBT! "D.D. Hephzibah" and her determination to get better through Dialectical Behaviour Therapy. It's about how she takes each DBT skill, as it's taught, and then weaves and integrates them into her real life, showing how they help her in a really practical way. DBT skills always seem, on the surface, very simple but, as she remarks in one post to sum up her first six months of DBT,
"DBT is hard work — sheer unadulterated gritty painful hard work and I LOVE IT!"
- Smartphone App: (For iPhone and iPAD (IOS-5)) DBT Diary Card and Skills Coach has a number of good prompt features, and should prove useful as a mobile tool. Does require a good deal of familiarity with DBT concepts, but I'd definitely recommend this app.
- Book: "Emotions are complex, but they are not abritrary". So begins this excellent manual, looking at strategies to manage chronic stress, by focusing on the stress itself, what it means, rather than seeking to escape from it. The Stress Response: How Dialectical Behavior Therapy Can Free You from Needless Anxiety, Worry, Anger, and Other Symptoms by Christy Matta is filled with highly practical DBT exercises, all elegantly related back to Marsha Linehan's bio-social theory.
With chapters covering how our thoughts interact with the experience of stress; on how thinking dialectically (letting go of extreme thinking, accepting multiple truths, understanding internconnections and embracing constant change) to help you come to terms with those thoughts; on acknowledging and tolerating pain and stress-inducing life events (again, extremely practical strategies); relationship skills; Mindulness; how to offset stress and pain against more positive and joyful experience and emotion; how growth is achieved through consciously not avoiding stressful problems; on reducing "self mistrust" and finding alternatives to harmful 'coping' strategies; and on maintenance strategies for long-term recovery.
It could quickly become the book to recommend for anyone undergoing Dialectical Behaviour Therapy for stress, showing how adaptable DBT is, beyond Borderline Personality Disorder.