Author Archives: brocke

PLEASE

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Part of the overview included why it’s hard to regulate emotions.  One of those, Lack of Skill, is why DBT was created and others including Biology, Attitude, and Overload, all have specific skills in the Emotion Regulation Module that speak to overcoming them.

PLEASE is the skill that addresses roadblocks of biology; it’s the acronym to help remember ways to take care of ourselves physically.

  • P &
  • L – Treat Physical Illness. Take care of your body by seeing a doctor when necessary and taking prescribed medication
  • E – balance Eating. Don’t eat too much or too little. Eat regularly and mindfully throughout the day, and stay away from trigger foods, those that make you feel overly emotional.
  • A – avoid mood-Altering substances. Stay away from illicit drugs and drink alcohol in moderation, if at all.
  • S – balance Sleep. Try to get 7 to 9 hours of sleep a night, or at least the amount of sleep that helps you feel good. Keep to a consistent sleep schedule, especially if you are having difficulty sleeping.
  • E – Exercise. Do some sort of exercise every day. Try to build up to 20 min of daily exercise.

(From DBT Skills Training Handouts and Worksheets, Second Edition 2015 by Marsha M Linehan)

 

When the kids were little I took them to Early Childhood and Family Education classes (ECFE).  Part of the classes were together and part of the class time the parents and kids separated with a child development instructor and a parent instructor.  Our instructor explained the acronym HALTS to us – kids are more likely to have tantrums when they are…

  • Hungry
  • Angry
  • Lonely
  • Tired
  • Sick, Sad, or Stressed

We all agreed that this goes for us as adults too!

One last thought to consider today…

Emotions – Review

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This is a basic outline of the information in the Emotion Regulation Module.
(taken from DBT Skills Training Handouts and Worksheets, Second Edition 2005 by Marsha M. Linehan)

What Emotions DO…

  1. Motivate us to action
    1. The urge to action by certain emotions is hard-wired into our biology
    2. This urge to action can save time in getting us to act when we don’t have time to think things through
    3. Strong emotions can help us overcome obstacles in our minds and in the environment
  2. Communicate to others
    1. Specific facial expressions for specific emotions are hard-wired into our biology [Research has shown that these specific expressions are true for any human regardless of race, language, age, gender, or location.]
    2. Body language and tone of voice is also hard-wired to specific emotions
    3. Whether we intend it or not, our communication of emotions influences others
  3. Inform us
    1. Emotions can give us important information about the situation
    2. Gut feelings can be a response to something important about the situation and cause us to check the facts
    3. Caution: Sometimes we treat emotions as fact and use them to justify our thoughts or actions; this will cause trouble if because of it we don’t check the facts.

How to Determine Emotions…

  1. Event – when an emotional response happens, the first step is to outline the event that happened right before the reaction
  2. Sensations – the next step is to figure out what bodily sensations are happening
  3. Thoughts – then to clue into the thoughts present
  4. Action – last to notice what urge to action is present
  5. By putting all this together, the emotion can be identified

Why it’s Hard to Regulate Emotions…

  1. Biology – presence of biological factors such as physical pain, hunger, hormones, fatigue, stress
  2. Lack of Skill – not knowing how to regulate the emotions
  3. Reinforcement –
    1. Expression of emotion may be detrimental but because it was learned from the family of origin is a default expression
    2. Something in the environment reinforces the emotional reaction
  4. Attitude –
    1. The mood controls action instead of the wise mind
    2. Lack of motivation to put the time and effort into regulating the emotions
  5. Overload – high emotion causes a skills breakdown and processing thought/figuring out what to do is impossible
  6. Myths –
    1. Myths get in the way, such as emotions are bad or weak which leads to avoiding emotion
    2. Myths get in the way, such as extreme emotions are necessary/ part of normality which leads to lack of interest in regulating emotions

Opposite Emotion Action

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The Emotion Regulation Module opens with explanations of what emotions are, what they do for us, how to figure out what emotion we’re feeling, and why it’s hard to regulate our emotions.  Some of that is review from earlier posts, and I plan to touch on/review those ideas soon.  The first skill in the Emotion Regulation Module is Opposite Emotion Action, which ties nicely into the survival mechanism/creative resources explanation because that too is acting opposite of what we naturally want to do.

Here is a flowchart we were given to help determine if opposite action is the right thing to do.

If following the flowchart leads to acting on opposite emotion, then there are several steps to use in doing that.

  1. Identify the opposite action to your emotion or urge
  2. Act opposite ALL the way
  3. Repeat acting opposite until you feel differently

 

It’s important to act opposite all the way in order to be effective. I posted a list of emotions and their opposite actions that we went through in groups.