The Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills Workbook for Psychosis: Manage Your Emotions, Reduce Symptoms, and Get Back to Your Life

by Maggie Mullen, Douglas Turkington (Foreword)

Powerful and effective skills to help you manage psychosis, take charge of your emotions, and get back to living your life. Based in dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), this first-of-its-kind workbook offers real skills to help you balance your emotions and stay grounded in reality. You’ll find self-assessments, worksheets, and guided activities to help you understand your symptoms and manage them in day-to-day life. You’ll also gain self-awareness, learn to navigate difficult or stressful situations, and discover healthier ways of interacting with others. If you have a history of psychosis or suffer from psychotic spectrum disorder, you know how difficult it can be. You may experience paranoia, auditory hallucinations, and emotional dysregulation. In addition, you may feel alienated from your friends and family if they have trouble understanding what you’re going through. The good news is that you can move beyond the stigma of psychosis, regain hope, and rebuild your life. This compassionate workbook will help you get started. In this workbook, you’ll learn the core skills of DBT to help you feel   You’ll also find important information on relapse prevention—including warning signs to watch out for, what to do if you have another episode, and an extensive resource list to help you manage your symptoms. And finally, you’ll find a wealth of practical tools that can be used every day for long-lasting psychosis recovery.

Genres: Self Help

168 pages, Paperback

Published February 1, 2021

About the author

Maggie Mullen, LCSW, is a clinical social worker, national trainer, and community activist with over a decade of experience helping people navigate psychosis. They are the author of The Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills Workbook for Psychosis. Maggie lives in Oakland, CA with their spouse and two cats.

Reviews

[David Pinsky · Rating 5 out of 5]

Whether for clients, loved ones, or practitioners, this engaging and compassionate book introduces and details several skills for people with psychotic spectrum disorders. I have recommended to friends with loved ones struggling with psychosis and know you will find it to be a great resource, too.

[Jakkz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Folks familiar with the principles of Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) will more clearly understand how biosocial theory, validation and acceptance, behavior change and holding a dialectical stance can be applied when experiencing psychotic processes and/or supporting people who do. Those unfamiliar with DBT will gain access to a useful framework for understanding how biology and environment interact with each other.

Descriptive, non-judgmental language, transparency, flexibility and playfulness are centered. The text's accessible every day language and style encourages and supports readers to approach rather than avoid topics that can be distressing, worrisome or be connected to difficult past experiences and de-stigmatizes experiences by placing them in context and offering strategies for balancing acceptance and change and reducing harm.

Within the first week of receiving this book, I shared it with a family who have struggled to connect, support and understand their loved one with a lifelong psychotic disorder, a client with new psychotic experiences and their partner, and several colleagues who have struggled to create a structured, empathic frame for treatment that prioritizes safety, wellbeing, agency and hope. Thank you Mx. Mullen for creating this excellent resource, which will benefit so many in shared communities.

[Alice · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is very clear and concise, with a lot of accessible and helpful exercises that you can take notes on directly in the book. I'm really excited for so many people to use all of the information and techniques this book provides!

[Melissa Yeboah-Amoako · Rating 5 out of 5]

This workbook is filled with information and exercises which are actually incredibly helpful. I checked out and read through the ebook version, but I am purchasing the physical copy. This is the best workbook of this sort I have read thus far, and I believe what I have learned in this book will be invaluable to me in the present and future, as well as to my spouse and adult daughter(who are my closest supports). I truly appreciated the section for loved ones/supports for this reason specifically.

[Susan Rao · Rating 4 out of 5]

Despite the daunting title, this is a very approachable book which provides down-to-earth analyses and practical advice for people struggling with mental illness as well as their families. The author has clearly had extensive experience helping these populations in her practice and via this book is generously sharing what she has learned.

[Robyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is an incredible resource for those experiencing psychosis, their loved ones, and professionals in the mental health field. Mullen's approach is accessible, using concrete examples and providing helpful graphic organizers/activities that can be done right in the book. The skills and exercises taught in this book are effective, practical ways for people to manage their health and emotions when experiencing psychosis. This book is an excellent tool and resource, and will have a direct impact on the quality of living for many individuals and families.

[Amy ☾ · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars, rounded up. This book has a lot of really amazing DBT strategies to cope with mental illness. The reason I didn’t give it a higher rating is because with the title, I was expecting it to be focused on psychosis disorders and symptoms. While it did briefly go over what that looks like, and mentioned how the skills relate to it, I was hoping it would dive deeper into psychosis itself, and how people can cope during an episode for example, but felt this was more of a broad skill book.

[Jaimini Mehta · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a really accessible and application friendly book. Written in such an empathic way this is a great resource for clinicians, clients and loved ones.