The Role of Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) in Enhancing the Distress Tolerance and Interpersonal Effectiveness amongst Adolescents

Distress either can be physical like a broken leg or it can be emotional like sadness, depression or anger. At some phase or point of life we all have to face, tolerate and cope with the distress in our lives. Distress tolerance primarily refers to individual's ability to withstand and experience negative psychological states (Simons&Gaher, 2005). The interpersonal relationships and effectiveness between adolescents, their family and friends are considered to be a crucial factor that influences their well-being. Dialectical behaviour therapy (DBT) focuses on learning to cope and change the distressing events and circumstances. The distress tolerance training enhances the individuals capacity to deal with distress and on the other hand the intepersonal effectivensss skills taught in the dialectical behaviour therapy make the individual to deal with the relationships effectively. The primary objective of the present research study was to observe the effect of adapted form of dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) in enhancing the abilities of distress tolerance and interpersonal effectiveness. In the present study authors kept 20 participants on therapeutic intervention for the period of one year. The participants recorded to have poor levels of distress tolerance and interpersonal effectiveness on on the measures of Distress Tolerance Scale (DTS) and Interpersonal Needs Questionnaire (INQ) respectively. Participants were trained exclusively on the skills training modules of DBT in individual as well as group settings and their post intervention assessment of the levels of distress tolerance and interpersonal effectiveness were recorded with the respective tools after every four months (baseline, four, eight and twelve months) respectively. Descriptive statistical analysis (mean and standard deviation) and paired t-test was used to test the significance of mean.