#38: What the Heck is Dialectics?
Today, Marielle and Ed discuss the D in DBT: Dialectics. Dialectics helps us remember that two seemingly opposing forces can both be true, change is the only constant, and that we are all connected.
When emotions are heightened, either/or thinking can get us stuck and limit our ability to think and creatively problem solve. Dialectics encourages us to move away from either/or thinking and towards both/and thinking. For example, you can love someone and be very upset with them. You can want to work hard and also want to take breaks. You can be serious and silly.
Dialectics also reminds us that change is happening all the time and that we can learn to work with change in ourselves and others rather than fighting against it.
Show Highlights
- There is more than one way to solve problems
- Moving away from polarization in relationships
- Everything is connected in some way
- Things are always changing: our bodies, relationships, the world
- Holding multiple truths at the same time
- Black and white thinking narrows options
- Change is transactional
- If we change, others will change in response, and that will change us, and so on
- Can you find the kernel of truth in the other side?
- Letting go of extremes
- Embrace confusion
- If you extend kindness towards someone you are conflict with, it very well may change the interaction
- Can you hold opposing forces as equally true?
- Let yourself allow for things that seem contradictory
- What am I leaving out?
- Embracing change as an Opposite Action for anxiety
- As humans, we often crave security and certainty
- Everything has a cause, even if we don’t know what the cause is
DBT Skills Discussed
- Nonjudgmentalness
- Radical Acceptance
- Opposite Action
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#38: What the Heck is Dialectics? Transcript
Marielle Berg
Hello and welcome to The Skillful Podcast where we explore DBT and RO-DBT skills to help you reduce emotional suffering, improve your relationships, and become more present in your life. I’m your host, Marielle Berg, a psychotherapist at the Bay Area DBT and Couples Counseling Center.
Marielle Berg
Hi, Ed, how are you doing today?
Ed Fowler
I am doing good. And I’m excited for our topic for today.
Marielle Berg
Me too. When we were talking about topics, I think we were both surprised that we have never done an episode on dialectics. So that’s what we’re going to be talking about today.
Ed Fowler
Which is one of my favorite topics, and something that I use a lot. And again, I’m shocked that we haven’t covered this yet. So I’m glad that we’re getting to it now.
Marielle Berg
Me too. And when I was thinking about what we would talk about, I’m like, oh, there’s a lot. So we will probably come back to this. But we just wanted to introduce listeners to this, if they’re new to it, or expand on your learning, if you’ve been in a skills group for a while, and you already know about dialectics. So should we start maybe by defining what what dialectics is?
Ed Fowler
Yeah.
Ed Fowler
Do you want me to give it a shot?
Marielle Berg
Go for it.
Ed Fowler
So we will see if this sounds right. So the way I think about dialectics is the idea that more than one thing can be true or accurate or real at the same time. It’s getting out of the idea of that kind of either/or mentality, and being aware that two or more things can be accurate or real at the same time.
Marielle Berg
Yeah, I mean, I think that’s it in a nutshell, we can expand on that. But even just that concept can be so challenging, it can sound sort of simple. But when emotions are heightened, in particular, I think many of us find ourselves in the place where we are more rigid with our thinking. And we forget that you can you know, for example, love your job and hate it at the same time, right. And we could come up with so many other opposing things. And we’ll talk probably more about some of them later. But holding that stance where we get, where we’re more in this kind of both/and thinking rather than either/or.
Ed Fowler
Right.
Ed Fowler
And again, with dialectics, we’re acknowledging that two opposing things can be true. And then our goal is to try to synthesize them, rather than choose between them. And like you said, Marielle, I think when emotions are high, it’s a natural human response, to want security, and want things to be decided and things to be clear and to have solutions and get those solutions done. And so that’s where I think it is really just a natural pull, when emotions are high, towards is it this, or is it that? I got to choose one, and just follow that and get this tension over with. When so often of the time, it’s not this or that it’s this and that. And we actually need to slow down and do the work of seeing how do I make these two opposing things work together?
Marielle Berg
Yes, and I like the idea of like, it’s this and that. And when we can hang out with that and sort of move away from that urgency that you were talking about, like figure it out now, and then just stay with that course of action. So when we can move away from that, again, more rigid type thinking, it’s amazing what can happen. It can be a real creative place where maybe ideas that never crossed your mind, you know, come to come to awareness.
Marielle Berg
And so it’s a place of a lot of possibility.
Ed Fowler
Absolutely.
Marielle Berg
I want to cover some points about dialectics, because dialectics remind us that the universe is filled with opposing sides and opposing forces, which we were just talking about. And essentially what that means is that there’s almost always more than one way to see a situation, and more than one way to solve a problem. And this can be really hopeful and helpful when we are getting stuck, especially in relationships with other people.
Marielle Berg
Where, what can happen is we might get polarized, so one person thinks that, you know, can only be done this way and the other person thinks absolutely not. My way or the way I’m thinking about is the only right way, and then you get a very stuck situation where tensions can really rise, and people can feel very misunderstood. So dialectics remind us that there’s always more than one way to view a situation.
Ed Fowler
And I think that can apply to us within ourselves as well. That we can get into situations where we are feeling like no, it is this way, this is the only way that this situation can be handled. And then thinking, Oh, but maybe this way, this is the only way. And so, again, dialectics is the recommendation to approach it with like awareness and openness. And oh, how can I see a bigger picture than getting stuck in the small this side or that side?
Marielle Berg
Yes, and then dialectics also remind us that everything is connected in some way. And so we’re all connected to the universe, we influence others, in our environments, and others influence us and our environment. So we’re always kind of in this transactional sort of exchange between the world around us, the people around us, where things we do influence them and things they do influence us.
Marielle Berg
And in terms of this idea, which might be hard for some people to sort of grasp this idea that we’re all connected in some way, because we can feel so sort of individual in our little worlds, you know, living our separate lives and very disconnected from others, you can just think about how we are connected, for example, with the air we breathe, right? I breathe in, in and out the same air that other people breathe, and we are all doing that. Made even clearer by, unfortunately, by the pandemic, right?
Ed Fowler
Right.
Ed Fowler
And again, you know, one of the things I think about is that as I am breathing in and taking in oxygen and breathing out and putting out carbon dioxide, trees and plants are doing the opposite. And so it’s this back and forth that’s, like ongoing.
Marielle Berg
Yes, when we are outside and our feet are touching the earth, the other people outside their feet are also touching the earth. So for some people, this kind of more open way of thinking can be really helpful. Again, it moves us away from this more kind of insular, disconnected way of thinking. So everything is connected in some way. And the other thing is, change is the only constant.
Ed Fowler
Let’s leave a pause there, because that’s a deep one.
Marielle Berg
I don’t like this one, but it’s true. So I think this is important to acknowledge and accept, because it helps us again, to respond to life with more flexibility. It can help us go with the flow more and to go with what is. And I think when we can get to, when we hold too tight to how things are, it can create unnecessary suffering for us. Because things are always changing, our bodies are always changing, relationships are always changing. And this can be, I think when we confront this, it can feel it can feel scary.
Ed Fowler
Again, I think there is an a natural desire, especially if we’re feeling stressed or tense for something constant to hold on to. If things are in motion that can be disoriented, and we want stillness and constancy. And the reality is, we have periods of stillness, and we have periods of a lot of activity. And they go back and forth. And there is no such thing as like, it will always be this way.
Marielle Berg
Yes, and if we can allow ourselves to change and the people close to us to change too, it can, we can approach the change as an opportunity and not as something that’s threatening. If we just anticipate that, of course things will change.
Ed Fowler
And this reminds me of some of the ways we reflect on Radical Acceptance. By trying to hold a dialectical perspective, and stay open to multiple truths or realities, that’s often where we can get creative about how we change, what we change, what we want to happen during change. Where when we’re not being dialectical, and we say no, it shouldn’t change, I don’t want it to change, I hate change, then we become more constrained and we can’t actually choose, what will the change look like?
Marielle Berg
Yeah, it really narrows our options. And while we’re talking about change, let’s just say a little bit more about this idea of change being transactional, which I mentioned a moment ago.
Marielle Berg
So if you’re in a conflict with your significant other and you have one point of view, and they have another point of view, and I’m just gonna make one up here, they they want to move, they want to move out of the state, and you really don’t want to, you’re happy where you are, it feels good enough where you are right now. And you both sort of hold tight to your view, and things start to escalate, and you start to think, oh, maybe this relationship isn’t gonna work, you know, we’re just different people, we want different things, maybe we need to separate. And each of you get sort of more entrenched in your position.
Marielle Berg
That can be very, very painful, and obviously can end relationships. And sometimes that is the right thing to do. But other times, if you can move away from your stance for a little bit and say, okay, just for today, I’m going to listen to what my significant other has to say about their view about why we should move. I’m not going to interrupt, or, you know, make the case of why I think they’re wrong, or argue with them. I’m just going to really try to hear their point of view and see the wisdom in that and see maybe the positives.
Marielle Berg
If you make that change, that is going to influence them, we don’t know exactly how it’s going to influence but very often, that might soften the other person, maybe if they soften, then you soften more, maybe then they see your point of view, maybe something entirely new comes out of that. So this is this idea that change is transactional, we are always influencing others, they are influencing us. And if you change or you try to change how you are showing up or your behavior, that will absolutely have an impact on those around you. And that can be an impact really, for the better at times.
Ed Fowler
And I think that in the example that you used, having a dialectical approach is to try to recognize, okay, here’s one side, here’s the other side. And rather than okay, which one’s right or wrong, how are we going to sort this out? Being able to say, here are the two sides, what do we need to synthesize them? Is there a way? And there might not be.
Ed Fowler
So for instance, if one person really passionately feels like they need to move, and the other person passionately, feels like they need to stay, maybe you do need to separate, right? But often if we’re dialectical and saying, Okay, moving or staying are both valid, they’re both real, how do we stay open? Listen, think about the possibilities, is there a way we could synthesize these, very often you can come up with something in the middle.
Ed Fowler
You can’t get there, if you hold tight to no, this is what I think, I have to hold on to it, this is it, there is only one way, I it’s a threat to consider the other side. And then that’s where we can get locked in. Whereas, okay, I’m going to make an effort to be open to the other side, I’m going to consider the other side very often, again, it influences the other person very often to do the same. And you get new information that may be helpful to both sides.
Marielle Berg
Yes, and with this, or another way to think about this is connecting with your Wise Mind, to see if you can find the kernel of truth on the other side. And that can really change things. And if you do that this is related to our skill of Validation, the other side or the other person is is going to probably feel better. They’re going to feel like oh, you finally get where I’m coming from, I don’t have to fight so hard. I don’t have to dig my heels in so hard. So you’re, you’re kind of meeting them where they are. And that can be very powerful. So we’re talking about checking with Wise Mind, we’re also talking about letting go of extremes.
Ed Fowler
Practicing nonjudgmentalness. You know, just being able to say, here’s my opinion, here’s their opinion. As opposed to well, here’s their dumb opinion. Here’s my wonderful, wise opinion.
Marielle Berg
Always, always, that’s my perspective.
Ed Fowler
On my opinion? I know Marielle. So, so it is being able to like practice some nonjudgmentalness. And just what are the facts here?
Marielle Berg
Yes, yes. And another thing to think about, which I think is so hard, especially if the stakes feel really high is to embrace confusion. So moving away from whether something is true or not true, or whether there’s a yes or a no but staying in the place where you may not have answers. Where things may not be clear. And slowing things down to be in the not knowing space, and seeing what might come from that.
Marielle Berg
And of course in order to do this just to bring it back to our other skills, our SUDs our Subjective Units of Distress have to be low enough where we can be in Wise Mind. If we are in high distress, this is going to be nearly impossible to do. So the first thing to do is, when especially if there’s you know, conflict or things, you know, with others, even within yourself, or things feel really upsetting, is to be checking in, am I in my Wise Mind? If you’re not, to be doing Distress Tolerance skills to calm your system down enough to, to think more clearly about moving to this area of moving away from extremes.
Ed Fowler
And for me, one of the ways that I check in about, what is my distress level? Am I in my Wise Mind is noticing, am I finding myself pulled to extremes or to, you know, one side or another side? And that oftentimes, I noticed, if I’m feeling a lot of distress, it’s because I’ve got all or nothing thinking, either/or thinking. And so slowing that down, practicing some Distress Tolerance, and maybe some Emotion Regulation to pull that back, and getting more into opening up to both/and can bring down my distress level. So if I’m in extremes, it’s a sign my distress is high. If I practice Distress Tolerance, oftentimes I get out of extremes.
Marielle Berg
Yes, yeah. Because you’re in your Wise Mind. So your Wise Mind can be in that place that is less rigid and is more flexible.
Marielle Berg
When we are in that place of extremes, there can be a fair amount of predicting the future. It’s always going to be this way, she’ll never understand me, I will never not be in pain, this pandemic will never end. And so again, that’s very Emotion Mind thinking, which is a sure signal that your system needs some settling, that you need some Distress Tolerance.
Marielle Berg
And dialectical thinking, is really asking us to, to not do that, to not predict the future, because we don’t know. We cannot predict the future with any degree of certainty. We can plan for probabilities, of course, and be prudent in that. But but we don’t know. And I think when our distress level is higher, I wouldn’t say I think I know, also for myself, that I can get very wedded to it will always be this way.
Ed Fowler
Right. And so again, I think that noticing that kind of stuff helps us to recognize, oh, I’m not in Wise Mind, maybe I need dialectical thinking. And practicing dialectical thinking, helps us to get into Wise Mind can accentuate our wisdom, and helps us find solutions.
Marielle Berg
And so we’re talking about moving away from the extremes of thinking. And as we said, a moment ago, another concept that can be helpful in doing that is being aware, as we talked about, that we’re all connected. And so one way to actually bring that awareness into practice, is to remind yourself to treat others as you want them to treat you, which again, can be hard in the moment, and especially if we feel like someone else might be treating us unfairly. Well, they’re not, they’re not being kind to me, or they’re not being patient. So forget them. I’m not going to do that back to them. But so treating others as you want them to treat you which again, if we’re thinking about the transactional nature of exchanges between people, that might shift something in the other person. It may not, but it may.
Ed Fowler
Right.
Marielle Berg
There’s a possibility there.
Ed Fowler
And another way that I approach this is to, especially if there’s a lot of tension to notice, how do I wish the other person would think about me and treat me? And let me start practicing that towards them first. And I think this works much more effectively if I do it within myself, right?
Ed Fowler
And so start with like, how do I wish the other person would see me? What do I wish they would do in this situation? Let me try to apply that from me to them, and see what happens within me. And then if I actually do apply it, see what happens with them, recognizing we’re connected. And so if I change, they are more likely to change. So what do I wish they would do? I’m going to do it for them.
Marielle Berg
Again, I mean, I feel like I keep talking about flexibility versus rigidity. That takes a lot of flexibility. It also takes faith. Because if you’re doing that, with someone who you’re in an intimate relationship with, or anyone who really matters to you, a best friend or a family member or a child, you are making yourself really vulnerable. Like if you want to be treated with kindness and compassion and you extend that towards someone you’re in conflict with, you are opening yourself up potentially to be shut down or hurt. So it’s a leap of faith that I’m going to do this anyway.
Ed Fowler
So again, with all of this, it requires a lot of mindful awareness of thoughts, of emotions, of physical sensations, so that we can notice like, okay, is this the time to practice this kind of openness? I’m going to I try to treat them the way I want to be treated, or am I still feeling really hurt? I’m feeling really afraid? In which case, yeah, I need to take it slow. This gets to a dialectic that I probably need to be more open. And I’m too scared to do that right now. Rather than I need to be more open, I have to push myself or I’m too scared to be open, I have to shut down, I have to block myself off trying to just notice where am I at right now, what might I need is this the time I can do it, and be really flexible, as Marielle said.
Marielle Berg
And what what you’re referring to here is, and maybe we’ll go into this a bit more now is this, how to be dialectical within yourself. And so we’ve been talking a lot about kind of with others around you, but how to hold that you have these kind of opposing forces within you that we all do.
Marielle Berg
So you want to be open and loving and vulnerable, but you’re also really scared, you can be tough and gentle. You can be mad at somebody and also love and respect the person. And so if we have a hard time holding these opposing forces within us, it can make our lives really, really challenging. And I see this so much, I mean, of course, in myself at times, and the people that we work with, this sort of like digging heels in, this desire to really define and cement things. But you know, I’m just that kind of person, I am just, you know, I’m just not a go getter, or I’m just not smarter. I’m just not a social person. And so that, again, really shuts down parts of ourselves and our thinking, and usually it’s much more complex, it’s much more nuanced. So maybe at times, you don’t enjoy being all that social. And other times you do.
Ed Fowler
Another aspect of dialectics that we can try to apply here is when we’re finding ourselves struggling with dialectical thinking, being able to be open to more than one way. One thing is to try to notice, what am I not seeing? What’s missing here? What’s a different perspective, I might not be catching, whether it’s within myself or in relationship with others? Pulling back and asking that question, What am I missing here? Or in a dialogue with another person, what are we missing? Are there perspectives that we’re not seeing that broadens us out, and helps us to recognize what in our stress in our worry in our self protectiveness, we might be leaving out?
Marielle Berg
I love that question. And not necessarily rushing to answer it. But whole sort of like when we do some of our Wise Mind practices where we ask Wise Mind a question and we, we kind of wait for an answer. It’s just a very open stance. What am I missing out? Or what am I leaving out? Or what are we leaving out and just seeing what might bubble up from that.
Ed Fowler
And then as we mentioned, change is constant. We may not like it, and (I’m being so dialectical) change is part of life. And so sometimes when we’re struggling to be dialectical, to see multiple perspectives and try to synthesize them, embracing change can be helpful.
Ed Fowler
This is kind of an Opposite Action of like, just okay, change is inevitable, change is happening, I’m going to embrace it, I’m radically accepting that, change is coming or change is happening or change is needed. And I’m opening myself up, I’m going to try to be willing to change. And so having a stance of embracing change, as an Opposite Action, for fear, or worry, or whatever, can often help us become more dialectical open us up a bit more.
Marielle Berg
And I think what we’ve had to go through and I know it’s impacts different people in different ways, and different folks in different countries, but the pandemic. I mean, talk about embracing change and going with it, where things change very, very quickly, very radically. And things continue to change, maybe not quite as radically or as quickly. But at times, yes.
Marielle Berg
So things are opening up or they’re closing down cases are rising, or they’re diminishing, things feel safer, or they don’t, a vaccine seems like it’s effective, but then it has some very dangerous potential, but rare side effects. So this is part of life and part of the nature of change. And when the stakes are high, like when we’re in a global pandemic, it is really challenging. And it asks us to continue to show up and respond and flow with the change. And I’m not saying it’s easy, but it’s necessary.
Ed Fowler
And I think that’s important, is, embracing change, embracing dialectical thinking often isn’t easy. And the more afraid we are, the more threatened we feel, the harder it’s going to be. And so acknowledging that and accepting this is hard. And it will probably be more effective if I try to embrace change. If I try to think dialectically if I see more than just one perspective.
Ed Fowler
I, often for me, I remind myself, I feel better, I do feel more secure, when I’m recognizing the bigger picture, and not just one side or the other side. And so being gentle with ourselves and acknowledging the difficulty of trying to embrace change, especially if we’re feeling our security is really threatened, then, yeah, this is hard. And I’m going to try, because I think it’ll help.
Marielle Berg
It makes me think of a conversation I had a few months ago with a friend who really likes to plan at the beginning of the new year, kind of all the things they’re going to do for their work and their personal life and their family life and financially and sort of has, and I don’t know if they stick to it, exactly, but is quite effective at carrying out those plans. That’s how their mind works, they’re very structured. And she said to me, at the beginning of 2021, like, well, all my plans for 2020 just, you know, blow up in smoke. So I’m not going to make any for this year, because we just never know what’s going to happen. And I thought, Oh, this is like moving kind of, and I totally get it, from one extreme to the other. And so, yes, that, you know, the pandemic did actually, I think, bring us face to face with how unpredictable life can be, how much change can happen that we have no control over. And then um, he at least you know, who knows what will happen next year, went to the other extreme of like, well, forget it, why plan for anything.
Ed Fowler
And again, I hear in that the comfort of well, I tried to plan and that didn’t work at all, so now I’m going to try not to plan at all. We’re looking for security. And you know, there’s probably not any more security in not planning than there is then and planning really thoroughly. And so trying to acknowledge: planning can help and plans can change, how do I find something in the middle, often can help us actually feel more secure, and feel more flexible, and be able to address things with more fluidity. But we do this stuff naturally, because we get scared and it’s hard, and we don’t want to be disappointed or feel pain. And so being able to dialectically acknowledge that yeah, I’m going to be undialectic, and I’m going to try to be dialectical.
Marielle Berg
And so bringing us back to the idea of change being transactional, pay attention to your effect on others and how they affect you. So if you walk into a store, let’s say, a hardware store to purchase something, and you as someone who works there, where to find x, y, z thing you’re looking for, and you’re scowling. Although they may not be able to see that these days with a mask, but you have this sort of like intensity about you and you don’t say hello, and you don’t maybe say please or thank you, that will likely be a different exchange, than if you go in and ask for the thing you’re looking for in a more relaxed manner, more friendly, more open. So paying attention to your own behavior, and how it impacts others. Because the way we treat other people will impact how they treat us, which will impact how we treat them. And vice versa. It’s always moving in this back and forth.
Ed Fowler
And from that perspective, also trying to practice letting go of blame. Because very often, we think this is natural. Well, I just asked for what I needed from the store, and they were very rude to me, and so they shouldn’t have been rude to me, and I had to be rude back because how dare they? And so trying not to get into that blame, and just acknowledging like, oh, that person sounded really short and curt, I wonder what’s going on here, you know, instead of well, they shouldn’t have done that, or self blame. I was way too harsh. I shouldn’t have said that. Of course I deserve for them to snap at me. And again, just trying to not get into the blame or the either or, and try to open up a bit.
Marielle Berg
Yeah. So when we’re thinking about letting go of blame, reminding ourselves that our own behavior and other people’s behaviors have been caused by many interactions over time. We are all a product of our past experiences, you know, our childhoods, our adolescence, our later years depending on how old we are, that all of that all those experiences go into making us who we are and creating who we are today. And that is the same for each and every individual you encounter.
Ed Fowler
I’ve been thinking about this lately, because I had an injury earlier in the year and was in pain. And so I was more short when I was interacting with people in public. Because oftentimes I was in pain just being in the store or being on the street. And it made me think about all the times that people have been short with me. And I was like, oh, that’s rude, when I don’t know, maybe they were in pain, maybe they were in physical pain or emotional pain.
Ed Fowler
And so really recognizing that, whether it’s short term or long term, whatever’s happening has a cause. And if I want to be more understanding towards myself and towards others, be open to the possibilities, try to not get stuck in extremes, that tends to create more security within myself more flexibility and often that impacts others as well.
Marielle Berg
Yes, and on that note, let’s bring this to a close for today. I think we will likely come back to this topic, but I’m hoping that listeners got something of use from our discussion of dialectics today.
Ed Fowler
Thanks, Marielle. This is great to talk about.
Marielle Berg
Thank you too, Ed. Bye bye. Thanks for listening to today’s episode. To learn more, or if you’re in the Bay Area and want to get started with therapy, you can find us online at bayareadbtcc.com. That’s BayAreaDBTCC.com.