One main focus of DBT is teaching individuals to respond adaptively to the experience of extreme emotional states, referred to in this treatment as Distress Tolerance Skills. These skills are taught in order to reduce the rash actions in which individuals diagnosed with BPD often engage. These behaviors range from suicidal gestures and attempts, heavy drinking, drug use, eating binges and purging, angry outbursts, reckless driving, risky sexual experience, and excessive spending (Linehan, 1993). Distress tolerance skills focus on engaging in more adaptive emotion-regulation actions, such as distracting oneself through watching a movie, soothing oneself through taking a hot bath, and improving the moment through prayer (Linehan, 1993). It is thought that these skills help manage the intense affect, thus facilitating individuals’ return to their emotional set point, at which time they are more able to make decisions with their long-term interests in mind.
