Acceptance

In the last post I wrote about Dialectical Behavior Therapy’s use of validation.  Another characteristic that Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) emphasizes is the use of acceptance.  Marsha Linehan, the psychologist who developed DBT says that it adds the technology of acceptance to cognitive behavior therapy.  Years after DBT gained popularity, other therapies have included acceptance as a component but I think that DBT is the most organized and systematic in its use.

Dr. Linehan writes about radical acceptance in the DBT Skills Training Manual stating that “freedom from suffering requires acceptance from deep within of what is.  Let yourself go completely with what is.  Let go of fighting reality.” 

In later writing on DBT we find the equation, suffering = pain + nonacceptance.

Swiss American Psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross included acceptance in her description of the stages of grief.  She wrote that people confronted with a loss pass through stages of anger, denial, bargaining, depression and acceptance.  Usually people visit the stages a number of times, working through them until they spend most of their time in the acceptance stage.  My clients often find this structure helpful in dealing with problems.  They usually can identify which stage they are stuck in and, with support, figure out what feelings and thoughts the acceptance stage would contain.  Then, of course, there’s the task of getting there.

Bill Bonacker