Posts by Marielle Berg

The Emotion Regulation skills in DBT offer lots of ways to help you identify and respond to emotions. Some of the Emotion Regulation skills focus on change, while others focus on acceptance. This toggling back and forth between acceptance and change is the primary dialectic we are continually balancing in DBT. This episode provides an…

This episode explores how to apply mindfulness skills to help you manage distressing thoughts using the DBT skill called Mindfulness of Current Thoughts. Thoughts can cause a lot of suffering. Often, thoughts about events are based on assumptions, judgments, or interpretations rather than on facts. The core of this skill is to notice thoughts as…

Today, Marielle interviews Elle Michel, LMFT, a therapist in Los Angeles who specializes in treating complex trauma. Elle uses a combination of modalities to treat trauma, including DBT, Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), and Brainspotting.  This episode focuses on describing what happens in the nervous system after a traumatic event, and how to use…

Today, we take a deep dive into working with judgments.  Judgments about ourselves and others can increase emotional suffering and negatively impact relationships. Judgments are often assumptions, interpretations, or myths that we add to the facts. We then tend to mistake our judgments for facts.  This episode explores how to notice all of the subtle…

The Distress Tolerance skills in DBT offer creative ways to get through challenging situations without making things worse.  In Part 2 of this overview of Distress Tolerance skills, we focus on acceptance skills. Both acceptance and change skills can help lower emotional distress so you can access your most wise, grounded self. Radical Acceptance, as…

The Distress Tolerance skills in DBT offer creative ways to get through challenging situations without making things worse. Today’s episode is Part 1 of an overview of Distress Tolerance as a whole, with a special focus on change-oriented skills. When emotional distress is high, there can be an intense desire to do something to make…

Do you find asking for things or saying no hard? If so, this episode is for you.  Marielle and Ed provide a framework for thinking about how strongly to make requests and how strongly to say no. For some people, making requests confidently is challenging and for others, it’s saying no that is hard. Sometimes…

Today’s episode is a response to a listener question about procrastinating making progress towards life goals. Marielle and Ed explore the emotions that underlie urges to put off doing what needs to get done. For some people, procrastination is a habitual response, no matter what the task. For other people, procrastination is a response to…

Today, Marielle interviews Greg Bodin, MFT, a therapist in the San Francisco Bay Area who practices Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, or ACT.  Greg specializes in anxiety, trauma, men’s sex issues, and is also a certified EMDR therapist.  ACT and DBT have a lot in common. One of the core tenets of ACT is learning to…

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…