DBT therapy is short for Dialectical Behavior Therapy. It is currently the recommended and most effective treatment for people with BPD, but it's also the most promising treatment in mental health history. DBT is a psychotherapy designed by psychologist Marsha Linehan in the 1980's. DBT shared some of the same principles of CBT, Cognitive Behavior Therapy. Marsha had BPD, and based on her own experience, CBT wasn't always effective in people with BPD, so she developed DBT as a way to address these challenges more effectively. Marsha integrated aspects of CBT, combined with validation, mindfulness, and dialectics (dialectics are the integration of opposites).
It helps people with BPD to learn skills that come naturally to others. It helps them to regulate their emotions, to be mindful of others, to be fully present in what they are doing, helping to pay attention and stop dissociating. It teaches skills in distress tolerance, with skills like how to cope ahead and accumulate positive emotions. The last module is in interpersonal effectiveness, this teaches us to communicate in a gentler more validating way, to be logical and not reactive. This skill helps us communicate our needs and get them met, and how and why we should set boundaries and when.
DBT therapy is not talk therapy. It should consist of 2 hours a week in a class like setting doing skills training. It should also include an hour each week for a 1 on 1 with your DBT therapist. The last thing it should include is coaching calls. This is when you are struggling with an issue at home and you call your DBT coach and they help you to apply a skill you learned in class to your real-life issue. DBT is 1 yearlong from 1- last module. You can, and I recommend you do, stick around for two years. The numbers show that people who successfully complete 1 year of DBT - 75% of them will be symptom free. For those that complete 2 years of DBT, they had a 95% chance of being symptom free.
I remember my psychiatrist telling me I could really count on the fact that I didn't have to feel the way I did anymore. I thought if there was a way that I could do something and not feel that way anymore, I was taking it! The psychiatrist was right. After 2 years in DBT, I became symptom free.