A big noisy truck with a bed full of dirty off-road vehicles cuts me off and my next inhaled breath is full of exhaust fumes. My next exhaled breath is full of acrimonious judgements: “big truck guys are all jerks who don’t care about the environment.” It is easy to make assumptions based on minimal information. It takes effort to examine your assumptions and ask how they help or hurt you and your world.
A therapeutic modality known as Dialectical Behavior Therapy or DBT introduces a list of assumptions to adopt at the outset of the therapeutic process. Here are a few of them:
People are doing the best they can.
All behaviors (actions, thoughts, emotions) are caused.
Figuring out and changing the causes of behavior work better than judging and blaming (judging and blaming are easier). (Linehan, 2015)
Marsha Linehan, who developed DBT, believes that if we had all the information about an individual and their life, all their actions would make sense. If I really knew big truck guy, I might know that he was socialized that part of being a “man” is not letting a little Prius get in front of your truck. Or maybe I would know that while he was off-roading, he was appreciating the beauty of nature but had never been taught how to preserve it. Quite possibly he meant to be rude, but possibly was reacting to a bad day or even a lifetime of trauma.
What are your assumptions about the world? What are your assumptions about yourself? Think about where your assumptions came from and what purpose they serve. If you find yourself jumping to automatic conclusions like me, you too are taking the easy route.
Linehan named her therapy “dialectical” when she realized the need to balance two opposites; the idea of therapy as a catalyst for change along with the therapeutic goal of teaching an individual to accept who they are and where they are in the moment. A dialectic vision allows us to escape black and white thinking to realize “you can be weak and you can be strong; you can be happy and you can be sad (Linehan, 2020).”
I can be annoyed by a truck driver without demeaning him as a person. I can be angry and kind. I can blame the truck driver for my bad day, or I can take responsibility to heal myself and move on to creating as much good as I can in the world. What can you do if you question your automatic thoughts? We can make assumptions or make meaningful connections. We can have black and white or we can have rainbows.
References:
Linehan, M.M. (2015). DBT Skills Training Handouts and Worksheets. (2nd ed) p13.
Linehan, M.M. (2020). How Marsha Linehan developed the central feature of dialectical behavior therapy. Psychology Today. Retrieved from www.psychologytoday.com/us/articles/201912/how-marsha-linehan-developed-the-central-feature-dialectical-behavior-therapy
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