Posts by Marielle Berg
#21: Surviving Sexual Assault with Dr. Kelsey Harper
Today I’m talking with Dr. Kelsey Harper, a clinical psychologist and DBT therapist who works with trauma, PTSD, and chronic emotion dysregulation. With over a decade of work spanning varying settings and clientele, Kelsey has established a private practice in Santa Monica and observed time and again, that many clients reported extensive histories of trauma…
Read More#20: How Do You Talk to Yourself?
In today’s episode, we discuss your relationship with yourself, focusing on the skill of Loving-Kindness. When you are having a hard time, are you kind or harsh with yourself? Do you berate yourself for real or perceived mistakes? Do you try to motivate yourself with criticism? These tactics tend to not work in the long-run…
Read More#19: What are Your Values?
Instead of making New Year’s resolutions this year, think about using the momentum of the new year to make changes in your life that are aligned with your values. Often New Year’s resolutions come from a place of shame or deficiency, a place of trying to fix what’s “wrong” with you. What if you made…
Read More#18: Using Skills to Get Through the Holidays
The holidays are a time where there is often a lot of pressure to have a certain kind of experience – one that is about family, friends, joy, and celebration. For many folks, this is more of a fantasy than a reality. If you are fortunate enough to enjoy time with family and friends during…
Read More#17: Why Doing Nice Things for Yourself Matters
Do you have a hard time doing nice things for yourself? The DBT skill called Accumulating Positive Events in the Short-Term is all about doing small, regular self-care. Putting effort into building positive emotions on a regular basis helps build emotional resilience so you won’t get as thrown when hard things happen. Many folks believe…
Read More#16: Opposite Action
Sometimes it’s better to not act on our emotions. The DBT skill Opposite Action helps you act opposite to what your emotion is telling you to do. Use this skill when your emotion doesn’t fit the facts or when your emotion does fit the facts but acting on the emotion isn’t effective. This skill can…
Read More#15: Check the Facts
In Episode 15 of The Skillful Podcast, Marielle and Ed discuss checking the facts. When you have a painful emotion that you want to change, using the DBT skill called Check the Facts can be very helpful. Sometimes strong, painful emotions aren’t a reaction to what has actually happened but are based on beliefs, interpretations,…
Read More#14: Why Do We Have Emotions?
Many sensitive people have wished at times that they could just get rid of their emotions. They may try to dampen, suppress, or deny emotions. Although these efforts may work partially, at least in the short-term, they never really work in the long term. Plus, often the things sensitive people may turn to in order…
Read More#13: 10 Common Myths About Emotions
Today Marielle and Ed discuss the 10 most common myths about emotions. These myths can come from the culture around us and from the families we were raised in. Asking yourself where you learned some of these myths may be helpful in debunking them. Some myths have to do with a fear of being out…
Read More#12: Distraction & Self-Soothing to Ride out Painful Emotions
Marielle and Ed continue their conversation about Distress Tolerance focusing on Distraction and Self-Soothing. While these skills won’t solve any problems, they can be super helpful when you are caught up in painful emotions. Distraction in DBT is broken down into separate skills that go by the acronym ACCEPTS as in Wise Mind ACCEPTS. “Sometimes…
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