Dialectical Behavioral Therapy Paper

Karen’s greatest fear in life is her fear of abandonment. This is because of her past relationships with her family, men, and therapists. She had feelings of worthlessness and hopelessness. This stemmed from the abuse she experienced in childhood and as a young adult. Karen had difficulty forming healthy relationships because she just wanted to feel acceptance and love so she would rush into relationships with men and even her therapists. Her relations with her therapists were characterized by Karen’s severe dependence and the need for reassurance. This is because she never learned self-respect, self-love, independence, or self-worth growing up. So, she would quickly attach herself to people and hold onto relationships in a desperate attempt …show more content…
DBT focuses on correcting certain maladaptive behaviors and thoughts. It is broken into two kinds of therapy to focus on behavioral and interpersonal skills through group therapy and individual therapy sessions to focus on the individual’s immediate emotions, events happening in their lives, and to help guide them in applying their new learned skills to their lives. In addition to these sections of therapy, Karen’s therapist Dr. Banks, will work to create a stable and validating environment so that Karen can feel safe and trust Dr. Banks with her issues and work to correct them together. Dr. Banks created a constructive environment in which Karen felt secure enough to talk about her feelings and about her self-harming actions in order to help to change the behavior. In the past, Karen’s therapists often made their relationships between themselves and Karen very unstable and sometimes unprofessionally having sexual relations with her. They would accuse her of going to therapy and hurting herself for mere attention and manipulation where, Dr. Banks said that Karen was only to cope with her strong emotional pain in the best way she knew