DBT Skills 101
This DBT skill encourages individuals to increase positive experiences in their lives by engaging in enjoyable activities.
What is Accumulating Positives?
+100 Bonus Points: Each person on your team identifies one way to accumulate short-term or long-term positives.
This distortion occurs when a person takes one negative event and believes it will always happen, creating a pattern of defeat.
What is Overgeneralization?
+100 Bonus Points: Each person on your team identifies an instance where they overgeneralized.
You feel anxious about an upcoming presentation. Using the Coping Ahead skill, outline a plan to manage your anxiety.
Respond with specific coping strategies, such as deep breathing, visualization, or practice runs.
The PLEASE skill only involves emotional regulation and does not consider physical health.
False. The PLEASE skill (an acronym for Physical health) emphasizes the importance of addressing physical needs—like nutrition, exercise, and sleep—alongside emotional regulation to effectively manage emotions.
Name the classic board game where players attempt to build the longest continuous route.
What is Ticket to Ride?
This skill focuses on taking care of physical health to regulate emotions by addressing physical needs.
What is PLEASE?
This distortion leads one to interpret ambiguous situations as negative, often anticipating a worst-case scenario.
What is Jumping to Conclusions?
+100 Bonus Points: Each person on your team identifies an instance where they jumped to conclusions.
You’ve had a bad day and find yourself thinking, "I always mess everything up." Identify the cognitive distortion in this thought and reframe it.
This is Overgeneralization. Possible reframe: "I had a tough day, but I’ve succeeded before and can again."
Labeling someone as "lazy" after they miss a deadline is a healthy way to assess their behavior.
False. Labeling is a cognitive distortion that oversimplifies complex behaviors and ignores other factors that may have influenced the person’s actions. It can lead to negative self-esteem and harmful judgments.
This card game, often played in groups, involves bluffing and strategy to win tricks.
What is Poker?
This DBT skill helps individuals prepare for future stressors by visualizing and planning effective coping strategies.
What is Coping Ahead?
In this distortion, one exaggerates the importance of a problem, making it seem more severe than it is.
What is Catastrophizing?
+100 Bonus Points: Each person on your team identifies an instance when they catastrophized.
You want to avoid socializing because you fear being judged. Use Opposite Action to devise a plan to engage with others.
Plan to attend a social event despite the fear, focusing on enjoying the experience rather than worrying about judgment.
Opposite Action can only be used for emotions that are easy to identify and understand.
False. Opposite Action is versatile and can be applied to a wide range of emotions, including those that are complex or difficult to understand. It encourages taking actions contrary to one's emotional impulses, regardless of clarity.
In this popular word game, players use letter tiles to create words on a game board.
What is Scrabble?
*Daily Double*
This skill encourages individuals to take actions that are opposite to their emotional urges to change their emotional responses.
What is Opposite Action?
This involves defining yourself or others based on a single negative event, rather than considering the whole person.
What is Labeling?
+100 Bonus Points: Each person on your team identifies an instance when they labeled themselves or someone else.
You're feeling overwhelmed with responsibilities and think, "If I don’t finish this perfectly, I’m a failure." Identify and challenge the distortion present in this thought.
This is Labeling. Challenge it by recognizing that imperfection is acceptable and does not define success or self-worth.
Jumping to conclusions can lead to more anxiety and misunderstandings in relationships.
True.
This game challenges players to draw and guess words based on limited clues.
What is Pictionary?
This skill helps individuals to pause and assess their current situation before reacting.
What is STOP?
*Daily Double*
This cognitive distortion involves ignoring all the positive aspects of a situation and only focusing on the negative.
What is Mental Filtering?
+100 Bonus Points: Each person on your team identifies an instance when they experienced mental filtering.
You're feeling overwhelmed by a project at work and think, "I’ll never be able to get this done on time." Identify the cognitive distortion here and create a more balanced thought.
This is Catastrophizing. A more balanced thought could be: "I can break this project into smaller tasks and manage my time to meet the deadline."
Cognitive distortions are fixed patterns of thinking that cannot be changed.
False. Cognitive distortions are not fixed; they can be identified and challenged. Through cognitive-behavioral techniques, individuals can learn to recognize these patterns and replace them with more balanced thoughts.
This classic party game involves players acting out words or phrases without speaking, while their teammates guess what they are.
What is Charades?