Emotion Regulation 1 of 3 (May  2014)

Overview

“I don't want to be at the mercy of my emotions. I want to use them, to enjoy them, and to dominate them.” - Oscar Wilde 

The more we witness our emotional reactions and understand how they work, the easier it is to refrain. -Pema Chodron

This is the first class in the DBT Emotion Regulation series. In this class, we learn the importance of recognizing our emotions, overcoming barriers to healthy emotions, and learning to cope effectively and positively when our emotions become overwhelming or difficult to bear.

We also learn alternative, safer ways to deal while avoiding self-harm behaviors such as cutting and self-mutilation.  Self-harm comes in all forms, including sabotaging would-be successes, so you do not need to physically self-harm to benefit from this portion of the course. We will not discuss in detail specific self-harm issues to avoid triggering fellow students.

Those who experience intense or dysregulated emotions often get caught in the cycle of reacting and behaving in response to those emotions. Learning emotion regulation can be of great help in breaking this cycle. 

Three Main Goals of Emotion Regulation in DBT:

•Understand the Emotions You Experience
•Decrease Your Emotional Sensitivity
•Decrease Emotional Intensity

Learn how to begin:

• managing your emotions rather than being managed by them
• reducing your vulnerability to negative emotions and working toward reducing their frequency
• building positive emotion experiences