DBT Core Mindfulness Skills: States of Mind

The DBT Training starts on Thursday.  I could not be more excited.  I will be meeting people who are as fascinated by the DBT skills and illness as I am.  

So the four structural posts of DBT are Core Mindfulness Skills, Interpersonal Effectiveness, Emotion Regulation, and Distress Tolerance.  In the next three days, we will have an overview of these modules and questions for consideration.
 It can be hard for individuals with borderline personality disorder to trust their perceptions, in part because the emotional reactions can be so strong and pervasive invalidation can be detrimental in trusting your perspective.  In working with individuals with borderline personality disorder, remember that there is not a single "right way" to look at a situation.  There are often dialectics that can be explored. To explore these different perspectives, turn to the source.

So let's look at the States of Mind.  No one can live exclusively in one mind, so expect to see a mixture of Minds.  

Marsha Linehan defines Reasonable Mind as "your rational, thinking, logical mind.  It is the part of you that plans and evaluates things logically.  It is the cool part" (Linehan's Little Red Book, p. 65)

She also describes being in Emotion Mind as: ". . . your emotions are in control- when they influence and control your thinking and behavior" (Linehan's Little Red Book, p. 65).

So DBT emphasizes the synthesis of opposites.  Wise Mind is the synthesis of logical thinking and passion.  It takes the most effective aspects of the Emotion Mind and Reasonable Mind and integrates them into the processing of situations, moods, emotional reactions, and time for contemplative thought.

Marsha Linehan describes Wise Mind as "that part of each person that can know and experience truth" (Linehan's Little Red Book, p. 66).  

I like to call Wise Mind truths the things we know in our bones.  Like a skeleton, these thoughts help us to have structure and mobility to act on what we know to be true.

I found this poem recently.  It is true for me and the battles that we face in the realization of dwelling in the poles of Reasonable Mind and Emotion Mind, but also in Fixed Mind.

Found myself here in this place again
caught up in this moment
seeing that slavery brings security,
but in what, for what, and by what means?
It is moving from the known-
the constants and forces of what works within me-
to the uncertainty of hope and the freedom it brings.