Being Effective is Unnatural

DBT is skill-based treatment.  Unlike traditional talk therapy, DBT therapists will give coaching on how to cope with emotions, relationship issues, triggers, and stressors with specific DBT coping skills. Each month, I will be writing a blog post to highlight a skill of the month that really stands out to me.  A skill that I see clients who are working with me really benefiting from.  This month, the Being Effective Skill is making an impact on not only how my clients see things, but how they are responding to triggers.  Being Effective means you do what you need to do to reach your goal.  What can prevent us from Being Effective is doing what we feel like doing, getting hung up on what is right or wrong, or not thinking about long term goals.  

For example, in one couples session, both persons decided that even though they disagreed with how a past argument went down, they decided to Be Effective and let go who was right or wrong and instead use the couple session with me to focus on how to use interpersonal skills to address their interpretations, learn what triggers their partner, and cope ahead with future misunderstandings.    Another client in DBT skills group told me he really wanted to over-function and do his co-workers job for him to prove a point that he was being lazy when his co-worker was digging his heels in, but instead of doing this he just went to his manager for help.  He realized that by doing his co-workers job for him, he would just be “cutting off his nose to spite his face” and adding on more work, exhaustion, and feelings of resentment for himself.   Another client in DBT skills group told me this week that she has a toxic relationship with a family member and had to even block this family member after years of realizing that contact with this person was affecting her mental health and using boundaries and being assertive with this person was not working.   

What can we learn from these three examples of Being Effective?  Being Effective is unnatural because it goes against what we are used to doing.   In a marriage, it may be the norm in a conflict to try to prove that you are right with what really happened in a conversation.   It may be tempting to be passive aggressive towards co-workers whom you are irritated towards. And it may be tempting to keep engaging with people who are family members even when they mistreat you due to focusing on what you think you “should” be doing.  However, what this skill teaches us is that we have to focus on our goals and listen to what our Wise Mind is telling us to do, even if it feels unnatural.  

What area of your life to you find it challenging to Be Effective? It is in work, relationships, or stopping problem behaviors?