DBT workbooks

I decided I am going to order some DBT books so I can start working on treatment for myself. At least so I can feel like I'm making progress while I try and get into therapy. And since I don't have insurance I am expecting crap care (it's what I've been getting so far). My hope is that the workbooks can tide me over until I have insurance again in September (when I go back to school).

I'm going to order Don't Let Your Emotions Run Your Life even though I hate the title (it sounds so invalidating), and
The Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills Workbook: Practical DBT Exercises for Learning Mindfulness, Interpersonal Effectiveness, Emotion Regulation, & Distress Tolerance. There is also a DBT skills workbook by the same people, but designed for Bipolar Disorder, and it's available at my library so I'm going to check that out as I've been diagnosed with both illnesses. I'm curious as to how the books might be different as BP and BPD have very similar symptoms. This Skills Training Manual for Treating Borderline Personality Disorder is available at my library too so it's next on my list.

Is anyone else out there using workbooks? I'm especially interested in hearing from people who are doing it without a group or therapist to guide them.

I'm not sure if you're aware, but here in the forum some of us are doing a online group study of the DBT skills work book (the green book) together in a few threads and you're welcome to join us

Our first topic is "Coping with Suicidal Thoughts" where we are looking at some simple distress skills and setting up our safety nets for deeper penetration into ourselves and further work in the actual DBT~ SWB. It's very important to take suicidality into account for BPD's, I'm sure we all know how fragile we are and how intensely that instinct calls to us at times- so having that safety next of resources first is a very important step. Safety first!

I'll be posting Chapter 1 in DBT~ SWB in the middle of the week (or at least 1/2 of it for us to work on) along with some other online resources and info I've found.

If you have these other books/or are getting them, it would be great if you could contribute some of yuor findings in them to the group effort olw. We're all in this together. We all fight this same menality, and have simmilar struggles- I think it's amazing that we can all work together in fighting it too

best 2U!
~Alice

I've just recently started The Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills Workbook on my own, and I can already see a difference. The main thing---which is really kind of HUGE---is just being more aware of what I'm feeling at a given moment, instead of being mindlessly wrapped up in it.

At least three or four dozen times a day I'll ask myself, "Am I tense? RELAX." And I find my shoulders dropping two or three inches from where they were all hunched up and knotted with tension.

And the half-smile technique? (Actually I picked that up off one of the DBT websites). Amazing. Once you get in the habit, you don't want to top, it's a total mood-elevator (that only goes up).

I'm not going to actively participate in the group because I'm overscheduled as it is, but I'm looking forward to checking in on how that goes for everybody.