The Dialectical Behavior Therapy Wellness Planner: 365 Days of Healthy Living for Your Body, Mind, and Spirit

by Amanda L. Smith, Blaise Aguirre

Overview

The Dialectical Behavior Therapy Wellness Planner is a practical tool for the emotionally sensitive person looking for an easier way to track emotions and behavior as well as monitor progress over time.

The Dialectical Behavior Therapy Wellness Planner is a helpful tool for anyone who struggles with emotional sensitivity and/or Borderline Personality Disorder to use as you work toward creating a healthier, more meaningful life—a life worth living—by balancing acceptance and change.

In Part 1, discover the value and details of mindfulness, distress tolerance, emotion regulation, and interpersonal effectiveness. Next, in Part 2, take the Self-Care Assessment and then get started with the Daily Self-Care Tracker. After thirty days, take a new Self-Care Assessment to see how you've grown!

Use the Planner to consistently track and report on your journey to healing. It's a journal that helps you keep everything in one place, and keeps you focused on where you are and where you want to go. Start on any date with the monthly, weekly, and daily calendars designed to help you plan for success as you practice skills and make a commitment to daily self-care.

You can use it to:
1. track your emotions and behavior
2. monitor your progress
3. bring structure into your day

Please note: the planner is not meant as an in-depth education or training on Dialectical Behavior Therapy nor is it meant as a replacement for diary cards or other useful resources in your journey to healing. Instead, it is a supplementary tool for tracking your personal progress.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781936268863
Publisher:	High Conflict Institute Press
Publication date:	09/15/2015
Pages:	272
Sales rank:	464,066
Product dimensions:	7.70(w) x 10.00(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Therapist, Amanda L. Smith, LMSW, is founder of Hope for BPD where she provides treatment consultation for Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) and case management for clients around the world. She also publishes My Dialectical Life--a daily email dedicated to Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) skills.

Her career in mental health began when she served as the executive director of the Pinellas County, Florida affiliate of the National Alliance for Mental Illness (NAMI). In 2007, she founded Florida Borderline Personality Disorder Association—a 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to providing advocacy, education, and support for persons diagnosed with BPD and their families.

Amanda received her MSW at Baylor University and is currently working as a DBT therapist.

Read an Excerpt

I love dialectical behavior therapy. As a highly sensitive person who experiences my emotions intensely, learning dialectical behavior therapy (or DBT) has made a profound and lasting difference in my own life.

Now that I'm a social worker, I continue to use the skills I learned in DBT every single day but I'm also in the position of sharing my joyful enthusiasm for this compassionate and highly[effective treatment with others.

DBT was originally developed by University of Washington psychologist Marsha Linehan to help people who were diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. However, the treatment has now been adapted for individuals suffering from depressions, anxiety, bipolar disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, eating disorders, addictions, and even attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

While DBT is based in cognitive behavior therapy (or CBT), Dr. Linehan found that a key to her clients' success was to balance both acceptance and change in their lives.

It was because of this reason that she added mindfulness, validation strategies, and dialectics to standard CBT. Because the goal of DBT is to help people create lives worth living, the treatment can be helpful to anyone interested in making positive and lasting changes

This wellness planner is intended to be a helpful tool to use as you work toward building a healthier and more meaningful life using your DBT skills. You can use it to keep track of your emotions and behaviors while monitoring your progress towards your recovery goals. It's also designed so that you can start on any date, so you can begin right away.

Remember: There is no substitute for working with a licensed mental health professional. This planner is not intended to take the place of an adherent dialectical behavior therapy treatment program.

For a complete list of skills, please see the second edition of Marsha Linehan's DBT Skills Training Handouts and Worksheets. This book is published by The Guilford Press and is listed in the resource section at the end of this planner.

Above all else, don't ever give up.

Table of Contents

Foreword by Blaise Aguirre, MD

PART 1
What is Dialectical Behavior Therapy?
Mindfulness
Distress Tolerance
Emotion Regulation
Interpersonal Effectiveness
Self-Care Assessment

PART 2
How to Use the Wellness Planner
Daily Wellness Planner
Past Year's Highlights
Next Year's Plans
Recommended Books and Websites
About the Author

Editorial Reviews

"Some years ago, I worked with a young woman who had a hard time tracking her experience from day-to-day. She used the diary cards I gave her, but because of crisis-ridden life, she couldn't keep her diary cards together and it was hard to measure her progress week over week. She moved to trying to track her emotions and behaviors on her smartphone, but again having to scroll back and forth between the most recent week and what happened 16 weeks ago (for instance) was cumbersome.

She loved to journal, so I suggested that she do that instead; however, even though this was a more productive way of monitoring, it had two drawbacks. The first was that there were days she would write an entire novel, and days that she would write a single sentence. I wished that there were a way for her to consistently be able to report on her journey to healing. She needed the benefit of a journal with all its pages in one tome, the utility of a diary card with easy prompts to focus her attention on specific target behaviors, and the practicality of a smartphone, keeping days in order without skipping tasks or days.

Amanda Smith has done just that with The Dialectical Behavior Therapy® Wellness Planner: 365 Days of Healthy Living for Your Body, Mind, and Spirit. It is a practical tool for the emotionally sensitive person looking for an easier way to track your emotions and behavior as well as monitor progress over time. The day-to-dayness of the planner brings gentle structure that does not overwhelm with burdensome demands. At the same time, it makes the skills from dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT) accessible for in-the-moment review as well allowing the user to continue to monitor their progress with self-assessment tools.

This is a wonderful little planner. Individuals will find it to be an important and personal yardstick on their journey to recovery. I also imagine giving it to members of a DBT skills group as a graduation present as a practical gift and a memento, the utility of which will last a lifetime."
Blaise Aguirre, M.D.
Medical Director
3East DBT-Continuum
McLean Hospital
Assistant Professor of Psychiatry
Harvard Medical School

"The Dialectical Behavior Therapy Wellness Planner is a must have. If you are looking for a practical resource that structures your management of treatment, progress, and emotion regulation, you have found it. Amanda Smith provides an excellent resource with information, guidance, referral information, and daily, weekly, and monthly assessment and accountability. This unique journal is a wonderful resource with practical application. I love the focus on cogent self-assessment, strengths and gratitude and progress on goals. What a wonderful tool for daily improved health and life success. Amanda Smith hit a home run with this journal."
Helen Wilson Harris, EdD, LCSW, Associate Professor, Garland School of Social Work

"Amanda Smith is living proof that DBT works. Used consistently, her Dialectical Behavior Therapy Wellness Planner will prove to be a valuable tool in saving your own life."
Stacy Pershall, author of Loud in the House of Myself: Memoir of a Strange Girl

"Amanda Smith has developed a way for people with emotional dysregulation to track their use of dialectical behavior therapy skills, and monitor their progress in a coherent, structured way. As a supplement to DBT and diary cards, the Dialectical Behavior Therapy Wellness Planner will assist a many with their therapeutic process and recovery."
Michael Roy, LCSW, founder and executive director of Clearview Women’s Center for Borderline Personality Disorder

"Amanda's DBT planner is a wonderful resource for those learning and practicing dialectical behavior therapy skills. I love how it reminds us each day to acknowledge the skills we are using as we build mastery. It also provides an opportunity to examine which skills we may be under and over utilizing so we can create some balance. It's colorful pages, organized layout, and gratitude sections will invite and encourage us to use it on a daily basis. This planner is replacing my diary cards!"
Debbie Corso, Founder and Co-Facilitator at DBT Path, online classes for emotionally sensitive people

"Like the author, I have benefited personally from DBT, and as a result, became intensively trained as a therapist. Personally and professionally, I feel that this planner can provide significant, meaningful insight for people who are healing through DBT. I really appreciate the ease with which users can review their challenges and successes over time. People may forget important moments, and the diary can be a useful reminder of how far someone has come and where they can continue to improve."
Allie Boston, MSW

"One of the most critical aspects of the recovery process is having a way to determine goals and monitor progress. Amanda Smith's clever book provides a framework for doing just that. First, the initial assessment shows areas for improvement. The weekly format allows for planning, tracking daily progress, and reviewing results. Then the monthly assessment helps to evaluate your progress and decide what to focus on next. This planner is a valuable road map to wellness and recovery."
Carl Dunn, Mental health educator and moderator of BPDChat

From the Publisher