Hearing voices/Beliefs and DBT skills

[HildaOgden]

I have been in DBT treatment for a year.
Nearly at the end.
I am trying, with the help of my therapist to use DBT skills to help me cope with hearing voices and the belief I have that I am under threat and I'm being controlled. It's mostly the anxiety the DBT is helping with.

I came off the Clopixol injection in May & have been ok until the past week or so. It was poisoning me.

Things have gotten very intense.

Has anyone here done DBT & used skills successfully to help cope with voices etc.

I'm seeing my psych on Thursday and I don't want to go back on Clopixol again.

Thanks

[Ballerina123]

there are no specific DBT skills that will directly help with distressing voices but things like the distress tolerance skills, self soothing and emotional regulation can help you tolerate the voices and get through distressing phases of voice hearing.

things like
- radical acceptance
- holding ice to distract from the voices
- grounding techniques to keep you in reality
- listening to music
- engaging in pleasant activities
- artistic/creative things
- practice relaxation and mindfulness meditation
- self care
- engaging with your higher power through prayer and meditaion
- using coping thoughts like "this too shall pass", or "Ive gotten though times like this in the past, so ill get through it again"

these wont get rid of the voices but they should help them become more tolerable.

I'm not sure you have done CBT before but there is a good book you can get on amazon called "overcoming distressing voices". It's CBT based but there are some good techniques in that book for managing voices. maybe worth a try. x

[HildaOgden]

Thanks, yes am using the distress tolerance skills
Thanks for the book recommendation

[crazykat]

What about also using checking the facts (It is an emotion regulation skill) but it may be helpful to challenges your beliefs and emotions around hearing the voices