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October Skill - Acceptance Skills

Distress Tolerance - Acceptance Skills

This month we begin the discussion of Acceptance skills. These skills are used when there is no way to end the crisis in the immediate term, or the change is permanent. These skills help us to increase our choices and freedom by coming to terms with the facts of our lives as they are. They are skills to help us accept life as it is in this moment.

Pain vs. Suffering

Before we start discussing the skills in this module, we will first discuss the difference between pain and suffering. Pain belongs to this moment and is a natural consequence of an action taken. For example, if I touch a hot stove, I will burn my finger and feel pain. The pain indicates that my finger is not designed to tolerate or handle the temperature of the stove. Pain is in this case a signal to me to stop what I am doing. Pain, from a DBT perspective, has a purpose – it indicates that we need to change our behavior. Suffering on the other hand is not necessary. Suffering is pain on top of pain. If we stay with the example, it is enough to feel the pain of my burned finger. Suffering would be calling myself names, saying “I’m so stupid” and does nothing to really solve anything and often will increase ethe likelihood of repeating the behavior. From a DBT perspective, suffering serves no purpose.

November Skill of the Month --

Next month we will begin discussing Radical Acceptance. Most of the people I have worked with find

this to be one of the most difficult skills to do. For that reason, we will start with a conceptual basis,

then go through the step-by-step process. Then there are 3 related skills that help us get radical

acceptance.