Skills Teaching

For various reasons, I’ve been doing a lot of research on Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) lately. If you’re not familiar with it, that’s okay. There’s a lot of concepts within it that many people will already be familiar with if they’ve any experience with mindful meditation or really any sort of therapy that deals with emotions. 

While I see how productive so many of these tactics could be in aiding comfort to an upsetting situation. It’s hard to imagine remembering all that. I feel like if I could remember all those steps in the moment, then I should have no trouble disconnecting from the emotions. I guess that’s kind of the whole point. 

There’s a lot of times when I get upset or emotional and it feels like a lot to deal with. We’re human, we all have those moments. Whether you actually are diagnosed with something or just wish for a little bit more control I think it’s important to take a look.

While psychology is a very regulated field and individuals shouldn’t just randomly play around with diagnosis or other things that could create lasting damage. I think the skills and tactics we’ve developed through psychological research and study should absolutely be utilized. The whole point is to improve and learning skills to help you with that is wonderful. 

I feel like there is a real need for individuals who are both knowledgeable and personable to bridge that gap between the field of clinical psychology and the practice of daily living. There is so much guidance out there that we could benefit from, but many people are so intimidated by psychology that it sits in books, studies, reports, and never reaches the people it was intended to help. 

We need more skills-teaching as a society. Not everyone needs an hour or so on a couch a week. Out of those who do or want that, even they can’t all afford or find the means to make it happen. Psychology is not a hard subject to teach in common sense terms, yet outside of a select few individuals we generally ignore it. 

I know that SOMEONE is going to bring up pop psych and self-help books. It’s a start, but how many have you read that just keep telling you the same thing without actually helping you or showing you how to achieve it. Lecturing vs. application. We need to do better.