Blog Posts Tagged "Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT)".

This article describes a simple, practical technique for How to Build Self Confidence. If you want to know why this works, you can read that section at the bottom of the article.

The example I’ve given is a social anxiety situation but you can also use this for situations in which you are feeling low self-confidence about a task (e.g., you’re sitting down to do a task on your computer at work, you hit a hard bit, and you begin to experience anxiety). For non-interpersonal situations, just focus on other behaviours rather than speech. Don’t include tone of voice if not required, but do include the other sections, including facial expressions.

Steps

Step 1: Identify a common situation that triggers feeling unconfident.

Example: You’re sitting in the lunchroom and a nervous thought enters your mind.

Step 2: Think of the last time this happened and answer the following 4 questions about how you acted when your low self confidence was triggered.

How did you act when your low self confidence was triggered in terms of your….

A. Behaviour and words.

Example: You started talking to the person in the room you feel most comfortable with rather than talking to the whole room.

B. Body posture and gestures.

Example: You switched your body posture so you were looking at your friend and had your shoulder facing most of the people in the room. You lowered your head while you were talking.

C. Tone of voice.

Example: You spoke quietly and not as clearly as usual (you ran your words together a bit aka you mumbled slightly).

D. Facial expressions.

Example: You tightened the muscles around your mouth.

Step 3: Decide on alternatives ways of behaving. Make sure you have a plan for all 4 categories and use these together. It will take time and practice before this new behaviour becomes your new normal.

A: Behaviour and words.

+/- Listen to someone else talking for a little bit first.

Say something positive in nature. It doesn’t need to be Pollyanna positive, expressing positive interest using a relaxed tone of voice is often positive enough.

Alternate between eye contact and resting your gaze on objects (e.g., your lunch as you are eating it), as appropriate.

B: Body posture and gestures.

Example: Sit in your chair in a relaxed way. Loosen any areas of your body you’re holding tension in (e.g., dropping your shoulders). Keep your body facing the majority of the room.

C: Tone of voice.

Example: Speaking clearly, without rushing, in an interested, relaxed tone.

D: Facial expressions.

Example: Relax the muscles in your face (doing a quick half smile can help with this).

Why this Works

Reason 1

Your brain gets information about how you feel from your body.

For example, research has shown that when people do a fake half-smile, they feel happier. However, if people do a full (i.e., big) fake smile, they don’t get this benefit. The reason for the difference is that doing a fake half-smile uses the same facial muscles as a real smile, but when people do a big fake smile, they use different muscles.

Reason 2

You can see from the example I gave that other people are likely to react more warmly to the changed behaviour rather than unconfident behaviour. It’s common for low self esteem behaviours to cause people to behave in ways that create self fulfilling prophecies. (Note: This is a reason you might feel sadness but not a reason for self criticism. If self-critcism was going to help you, it would’ve helped by now :-)).

How to Help

If you have a blog/are the webmaster for a website, and think your readers would like this article, I’d appreciate you linking to it with the anchor text “How to Build Self Confidence.” If you don’t have a blog/website, I always appreciate people sharing my articles on Facebook and Twitter.

This exercise is my version of an exercise that appears in Mind and Emotions. It’s based on “Opposite Action” techniques from Dialectical Behaviour Therapy.

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- Fill a big bowl with iced water (i.e. water and ice) so that it is really cold. Dip your face into it (for less than a minute)

- Dig your finger nails into your arm without breaking the skin.

Alternatively, if you feel like etching hateful thoughts into your skin, try writing them on your skin in red marker. Leaving the house with your ‘art work’ visible is not recommended!

- Blow up a bunch of balloons. Write your negative thoughts on them using a marker pen, one thought per balloon. Pop them.

- Put a hair tie or rubber band on your wrist or ankle. Ping it.

- Cry to reduce tension. (Crying releases stress hormones)

- Stroke your own face or arms in a gentle, loving way. (This releases Oxytocin and will help you feel physiologically calmer i.e. it will have an actual chemical effect on how you feel).

- Tell yourself a reassuring phrase like “It will pass”

or “Whatever strong feelings I am feeling at the moment, they will pass.”

Some of the above examples are from The Dialectical Behaviour Therapy Skills Workbook: Practical DBT Exercises for Learning Mindfulness, Interpersonal Effectiveness, Emotion Regulation, and Distress Tolerance.It’s a great resource for therapists or clients. Contains lots of practical strategies, like the ones above. Is available as an ebook for $9.99, so if you need it right now, you can download it instantly and view it on your PC or Mac.

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Do you have stressful interpersonal situations that recur and leave you feeling overwhelmed or attacked?

You might need to do some “top of the cliff” problem solving.

Here’s an example.

You’re a lawyer and people often ask you for legal advice in social situations. When this happens you feel uncomfortable. You often give advice to avoid awkwardness even though you don’t see it as appropriate.
(In case you’re wondering, this isn’t a thinly veiled personal example. People rarely ask me for psychological advice in social situations – thank goodness!)

My favorite model of interpersonal effectiveness

My favorite model of interpersonal effectiveness, developed by psychologist Prof Marsha Linehan, is that interpersonal effectiveness involves meeting and balancing the following three goals

1. Getting what you want
2. Keeping the relationship positive (if applicable)
3. Keeping your self respect (i.e. not behaving in ways that cause you to lose respect for yourself, like lying, exaggerating, or making threats/ultimatums)

Back to the example.

You come up with an alternative coping idea for the recurrent problem situation.

- You decide to keep a stack of business cards in your purse that have the phone number for a free legal advice service.

- You practice a few sentences you can trot out when you’re asked for advice. You try to find something you can say that meets the 3 goals above (getting what you want, keeping the relationship positive, and keeping your self respect).

For example, “It’s important to me that you get good advice for your situation, and lawyers often don’t give the right advice when they know someone personally. I can give you a card for where you can get some completely objective free advice. That way our relationship won’t cloud my ability to give you good advice”.

In this example, you might want to also practice a 2nd followup phrase for if the person who is asking for advice doesn’t initially respect the boundary you’ve set. Aim for caring and positive but firm.

DIY Psychological Challenge.

What recurrent situations do you need to find a top of the cliff problem solving solution for?

Pick ONE recurrent situation and come up with a “top of the cliff” problem solving solution.

Role play your new alternative coping plan with someone you trust. Ask them for honest feedback about how you’re coming across, and tweak as needed. (With therapy clients we do this together, and take turns switching roles).

Another example

Problem: You’re trying to have more personal time but find it difficult to turn down invitations to go out in the evenings with friends you genuinely want to see. You end up going out most nights of the week.

Alternative coping: A couple of times a month you plan on going out to a venue/activity that can accommodate a flexible number of people and that would appeal to most of your friends. When you want to decline invitations you can give friends the alternative option of coming along to a group gathering. You’ll still get to see each other but you can also have some nights at home.

Apply your alternative coping idea flexibly

The idea of deciding on and practicing an alternative coping plan isn’t that you apply it rigidly. Having/practicing a plan just means you have something available to you that you can apply if you think it’s a good fit for the situation.

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