DBT increases anxiety, depression and family conflict

[Anonymous]

Having been through thousands of dollars in useless therapy, this study comes as no surprise.


https://www.madinamerica.com/2023/10/universal-dbt-in-schools-increases-anxiety-depression-family-conflict/

[Anonymous]

I saw that headline but hadn't read it.

From the article:

'Outcomes after DBT were worse for boys, challenging the notion that boys (stereotypically less emotionally aware) need to receive therapy to become more emotionally skilled. Instead, after the intervention, boys had worse outcomes than girls in every measure except anxiety (which got worse for both boys and girls equally).

"At the six-month follow-up, boys who received DBT still had worse emotional awareness than boys in the control group, indicating that the intervention impeded long-term natural emotional awareness growth for boys."

[Anonymous]

This study was about the application of DBT universally via the schools, not about DBT in the clinical setting. Two different things. Probably associated with whether the parental unit in these school based programs was involved the way clinical adolescent programs are structured.

[Anonymous]

A terrible study to cite.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A terrible study to cite.

Disagree. There have been other studies about different versions of SEL and some have found positive results and some have found negative results.

Schools need to stop all these universal therapy, SEL, and DBT and proceed much more carefully. Or not at all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Having been through thousands of dollars in useless therapy, this study comes as no surprise.

OP can you share details of your experience?

[Anonymous]

Therapy is designed by women for girls. Bringing a boy to any kind of talk or "awareness " therapy is nuts

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Therapy is designed by women for girls. Bringing a boy to any kind of talk or "awareness " therapy is nuts

NP. I don't think this is true. There are boys who are more in tune with their emotional side and to understand it and accept it, especially versus the messaging boys get from society, can be really beneficial.

The thing about DBT is the people who are most successful are those who buy in to it. But isn't that true across the board with therapy? It's a shift in thinking and using strategies, in part, to better tolerate distress and regulate emotion. Some people do not/can not allow themselves to "go there" emotionally so DBT isn't as effective as designed. It's an uncomfortable process.

[Anonymous]

I also agree that there is too much emphasis on trying to bring mental health awareness into all aspects of a young person's life. It's one thing to encourage being aware of what you're thinking/feeling and knowing support resources available to you, and another to have specific modalities applied to everyone and encouraging pathologies to be casually thrown around. It's more harmful than helpful, I'd say.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I also agree that there is too much emphasis on trying to bring mental health awareness into all aspects of a young person's life. It's one thing to encourage being aware of what you're thinking/feeling and knowing support resources available to you, and another to have specific modalities applied to everyone and encouraging pathologies to be casually thrown around. It's more harmful than helpful, I'd say.

This reminds me of the critique of the now-discredited three-cueing method of teaching reading - that is is the way poor readers read and by teaching it, we are teaching children to use coping strategies of poor readers rather than teaching them to be good readers. By teaching coping methods for emotional dysregulation, are we teaching emotional dysregulation?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Therapy is designed by women for girls. Bringing a boy to any kind of talk or "awareness " therapy is nuts

Um, no. Both these sentences are totally wrong.

Also, I don't know about boys, but my husband experienced tremendous benefits from six months therapy from a therapist who uses a DBT approach.

[Anonymous]

"The WISE Teens group received eight weekly hour-long group-based sessions of a DBT curriculum."

That... is not DBT. At best, it could be described as DBT-inspired or DBT-informed.

[Anonymous]

I had to go through DBT with my teen. While I didn't find it useful, I think almost all of the other parents did. There was a lot of conflict in those households and parents using some of the DBT techniques in interactions with their teens made a positive difference. The majority of the parents in my group had girls in the program.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I had to go through DBT with my teen. While I didn't find it useful, I think almost all of the other parents did. There was a lot of conflict in those households and parents using some of the DBT techniques in interactions with their teens made a positive difference. The majority of the parents in my group had girls in the program.

I assume that your DD or your family was in some sort of crisis or having problems. That seems quite different than a universal application to all children.

[Anonymous]

Your title is wrong (in the article itself it says that DBT is very effective for adults with emotional regulation issues, and that's a hell of a lot of adults), but this is a fascinating study and I'm glad you shared it.