The Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills Workbook for Anxiety

chapter 7

Advanced Emotion Regulation Skills

In this chapter you will learn four advanced emotion regulation skills:

1. Being mindful of your emotions without judgment

2. Emotion exposure

3. Doing the opposite of your emotional urges

4. Problem solving

In chapter 3, Basic Mindfulness Skills, you learned how to recognize and describe your emo-
tions. Now, in this chapter, emotion exposure will further help you practice two very important
things. First, you will learn to observe the natural life cycle of your emotions, watching them rise
and fall, shift and change as new emotions replace old ones. Second, you’ll learn that you can
endure—without avoidance or resistance—your strong feelings. You’ll get practice staying “in” the
emotion even though you want to run or turn the feeling into action (shouting, hitting, or break-
ing things). Emotion exposure is a crucial process for learning not to fear your feelings. And it will
strengthen your emotion regulation skills. The more you practice this exposure work, the more
confident you’ll become as you face tough emotional challenges.
In addition to being mindful of your emotions without judgment and emotion exposure, you’ll
learn a behavioral technique called doing the opposite of your emotional urges. When you have a
strong emotion, it affects behavior in two ways. First, you change your facial expression and body
language to reflect your feeling. If you’re angry, you may begin to scowl and tighten your fists.
On the other hand, if you’re scared, your eyes may open wide while you hunch your shoulders.
The second behavioral change comes from action urges that accompany every emotion. Anger,
for example, may produce urges to shout or hit, while fear might push you to cower or back away.